devour my shadows
by ThunderClouds7
Summary: Derek Hale is dead. It's Stiles' fault. He'll stop at nothing to kill the creature who did it. The only problem is that his new work partner in National City looks like his dead soulmate.
1. i am become death

_A/N - This fic is my foray into darker themes - if any of you have read my other work, then you know I'm usually more of a light fic writer, but this idea got stuck in my head, and so far it's turning out pretty well. I've got maybe seven chapters written right now, so I think I'll post one every other Friday. Trigger warning there's a lot of self-harm in this fic as well as depression, drug use, grief, and mourning. Please enjoy._

* * *

When you come, you'll come with light  
you'll come radiant  
You devour my shadows  
count my notches  
and open me up  
open my hideaway  
and read me out loud  
so that I, too  
can hear  
myself

When you leave, you'll ask:  
which one of us do you believe  
is the beloved? which one of us  
is the beloved?

-Fiat Lux

* * *

i. i am become death

"Stiles, stop making out with Derek and finish cooking the damn burgers!" Scott yells, his words slurring slightly. Stiles disengages one hand from Derek's thick hair just long enough to flip Scott off, and his best friend laughs drunkenly. Stiles turns his attention back to making out with Derek. He's pressed up against a tree beside the portable grill, Derek's hands around his waist, Derek's mouth on his, Derek's chest pressing into him like a warm, heavy weight.

"Derek, we're hungry!" Malia whines.

"I'll handle it," Sheriff Stilinski sighs. "Since these two are so busy."

The Pack is having a party in the woods, celebrating the five-year anniversary since they finally shut off the beacon that the Nemeton Tree was putting out, five years of peace and calm in Beacon Hills, long enough for them to go to college and come back. Stiles and Lydia hauled a couple of cases of their special brew moonshine up so the werewolves could get drunk without having to drink fifty shots, and Stiles promised he'd make them all burgers, but he's too busy being distracted by Derek. The whole Pack is there: Scott, Malia, Lydia, Kira, Liam, and Derek along with Stiles' father and Scott's mother, Melissa.

Lydia's music blasts from a set of speakers, pounding through the trees, and the scent of cooking meat fills the air, though it's mostly masked by Derek's distinctive scent – like pine needles and fur – in Stiles' nose. He's had four drinks already (not the werewolf moonshine, that stuff will kill a human), and he feels it. The world swims around him pleasantly. He knows he'll have to come up for air eventually, but for now, he wants to see if he and Derek can break the record for longest continuous make-out session.

He hears a thud behind him, but he assumes someone has just fallen over, but then there's another thud, and leaves rain down on his head. Derek breaks away from him and curses, stumbling towards the main party, but he's drunk, too, and he trips. "Where are you going?" Stiles wonders, turning to follow him. He sees his father draw his pistol.

For a moment, he wonders if the booze is actually making him hallucinate, because there's a giant, ten-foot monster standing among his friends with scaly, red skin and a tail tipped with a triangular spike, but then its huge, clawed paw slams into Malia's chest and sends her flying through the air. She collides with Stiles, and the two of them go down in a tangle of limbs.

In their drunken state, it's hard to disentangle themselves. They keep bumping heads and making everything worse, and when they finally get free, the Pack is in chaos. Liam and Scott are down, Lydia is leading Melissa to safety, and Kira can't control her powers, sending sparks everywhere. Stiles looks around for his dad as he flounders upright, panicking. His frail, human father can't go up against whatever this giant lizard monster is.

"Hey!" Sheriff Stilinski steps out from behind a tree as the monster seizes Derek by the throat. The bullets bounce off its scales, but it drops Derek and spins toward the sheriff. Its eyes lock onto Sheriff Stilinski's, and Stiles feels a pulse of energy go through the air, then his father's pistol drops from numb fingers. The sheriff just stands there, staring blankly as the monster advances towards him.

Stiles runs forward. He doesn't have his triangular knife, but he can't let that thing kill his father. He tackles Sheriff Stilinski, and they crash to the ground. Sheriff Stilinski groans. Stiles rolls off and struggles upright, head swimming, and when he turns around, he finds himself staring into the creature's face. The shape of its features reminds him a little of the kanima; nearly human with wide, reptilian eyes, a ridge flowing over the top of its head like a mohawk. The eyes are pitch black, like mirrored pools.

A wave washes over him, into him, and he's confused. He doesn't know where he is. The trees around him are alien, warped things of blackened bark. And there's nothing in front of him, though he swears – he swears – there should be something there, but there's nothing but empty air, and the longer he stares at it, the more he's convinced that it's always been empty.

Then he looks down at the man on the ground. He's an older fellow; blonde-grey hair, pale eyes, dressed in a sheriff's brown and tan uniform. This man is dangerous. He knows this like he knows his own name. There's a gun on the ground, shining slightly, and he picks it up, points it at the man. His finger finds the trigger.

But a different part of his mind rears its head, a darker part, the one he keeps hidden. It pushes back against the alien trees, and then the world snaps back into place, and he's pointing the gun at his blank-faced father. There's an unfamiliar thread of power wiggling in the air, and he follows it back towards the monster, and when he thrusts out his hand, he forces his way into the beast's mind. Its thoughts are a jumble, nothing concrete for him to hold onto, to manipulate. The monster staggers away from him as if that will break the connection, but all it does is run into Derek. His claws rake futilely across its side.

The beast bellows and lashes out.

Derek jumps back, off balance from the alcohol.

The monster's claws extend.

They catch Derek right across the torso.

The bottom two rip through his stomach, and blood spurts from the wounds like torrents released from a dam. So much blood. Too much blood. The top two claws shatter his ribcage. Stiles can hear the sound from where he stands. Like gunshots. Derek's eyes go wide. Blood leaks from his mouth. His hands flutter to his chest, to the white poke of bone and the gushing blood, and he collapses to his knees, then slowly falls over onto his side.

"No!" Stiles screams. The word scrapes his throat raw on the way out. A black, awful rage rises up inside of him, an horrible panic. The rage lights up his darkness, and it takes wings separate from his own will. It bursts out of him and punches into the monster, the killer, and he tells it to kill itself, rip its own throat out, jump off a cliff. It roars at him, its claws twitching towards its throat, but then Stiles hears a desperate gurgle. It's Derek, trying to breathe, trying to talk to him. Stiles' concentration breaks, and the thing tears itself free, bounding away and disappearing into the trees.

Stiles lets it go. He runs to Derek, dropping to his knees, his hands fluttering uselessly over the wounds, the terrible wounds. All he can see is blood, blood and the beating of Derek's heart. He can see the organ through the shattered ribs. He strips off his shirt and presses it to Derek's abdomen, but the blood soaks through instantly. His hands turn red.

"Nonononononono," he murmurs.

Derek's eyes lock onto his, but he can't make any words come out, his mouth just works and works, blood bubbling past his lips.

"Come on, heal! Heal, Derek! Heal, you can do it!" Stiles begs. He leans down and kisses Derek as if that will make everything better, like in a fairy tale, but all he gets is the taste of Derek's blood on his lips.

The rest of the Pack is there, all around him, staring down at Derek in shock. "We have to get him to the hospital," Malia says.

Sheriff Stilinski shakes his head. "We can't move him. His insides are falling out."

"He just has to heal!" Stiles stutters. He's still holding the shirt in place with his red, red fingers. "Scott, can't you help him?"

Scott takes one of Derek's hands. Black lines run up his forearms, and his face contorts in pain, but nothing else happens. Derek's breath rattles in his chest. His eyes are wild and terrified, locked onto Stiles'. His mouth opens and shuts. His throat clicks and gurgles, but no words come out.

"Derek, heal, you have to heal," Stiles sobs. There are tears running down his cheeks, dropping onto his hands, marring the redness. Derek lifts one shaking hand, his fingers just as red as Stiles', and he touches Stiles' cheek. Stiles' vision blurs. Then Derek's fingers slide away, leaving a long, red streak, and Derek falls still, his heart, visible through his shattered chest, like a stone.

* * *

They hold the funeral five days later. Stiles doesn't think he can go – he hasn't eaten, hasn't slept, since that day in the woods – but Scott and Lydia come to his house the morning of and bundle him into the shower, then into a suit that Lydia picked out. Scott wraps him into a tight hug at the door, holding Stiles' head in one hand, and Stiles has to pull away before all the pieces he very carefully taped together shatter again.

Stiles stares at the ground as Lydia takes his hand and leads him towards her blue Prius which is parked by the sidewalk. She sits with him in the backseat, and Scott drives. He doesn't look at her. He can't. He feels like this is all his fault. Derek is dead because of him. It was his idea to have the party in the woods, his idea to bring the werewolf moonshine, his power that made the creature stumble into Derek. He let the creature get away. He feels a tear leak down his face. Lydia cups her hand around his cheek, pulling his head towards her so he has to look her in the eye. Where her fingers lie, he can still feel the slick heat of Derek's blood.

"It's not your fault," she says as if she can read his mind. Maybe she can. She still doesn't know the full extent of her banshee powers.

He pulls his head away.

They're burying Derek on his family plot, a stretch of woods behind the refurbished Hale house, beside his sister, Laura. It doesn't take them long to get there, and the rest of the Pack is already waiting. Stiles sees his father's police cruiser parked outside the house. Sheriff Stilinski has been working nonstop, trying to use the police office's resources to hunt down Derek's killer, but he's had no luck. The Pack is gathered on the porch along with Derek's other sister, Cora, Chris Argent, Alan Deaton, and Peter Hale, Derek's very creepy uncle.

After they step out of the car, Lydia keeps hold of Stiles' hand so he doesn't try to bolt, and Scott leads the processional around the side of the house towards the plot. Stiles' feet plod heavily over the ground, moving without him telling them to. He never wants to see these woods again. His eyes burn and ache. They've been burning and aching for the past five days from the lack of sleep and the tears that come over him without warning. When he saw the coffee mug Derek left at Stiles' house. His scent caught in one of Stiles' shirts. The way it rained that first night in just the way Derek likes. Liked. Soft and pattering.

They arrive at the tiny graveyard. Derek's casket is already there. Stiles chokes and balks when he sees it. He pictures Derek inside, dolled up in a clean shirt that covers his ravaged chest and one of his leather jackets. Stiles has Derek's favorite jacket, the battered, black one. It's tucked away in a box right now. Lydia has to pull him forward.

The Pack gathers around him, and he knows that they're trying to comfort him, but he just feels claustrophobic, though Lydia's hand is still nice in his. Deaton performs the service. Stiles doesn't hear any of it, or if he does, it doesn't register with him. He just stares at the coffin, imagining Derek inside, stone still, stone cold, face frozen, eyes shut, imagining Derek in the ground, slowly rotting away, being eaten by maggots.

"Stop. This isn't right."

It's only when everyone turns to look at him that he realizes he's spoken.

"Stiles," Lydia begins.

"It's not right," he repeats.

"There's nothing else we can do," Scott begins.

"We can burn him." Stiles can't bear the thought of Derek in the ground. The idea makes him want to throw up. He just keeps seeing Derek with patchy, rotten holes in his face, missing an eye, looking nothing like Derek.

"Is that what you want?" Deaton asks.

Stiles nods.

Lydia stays with him as the others go to collect wood to make a pyre, and when it's big enough, Malia and Liam heft the coffin on top as Cora goes back to the house for some kerosene. She douses the wood and casket, and Stiles takes the lighter out of Scott's hand. "Are you sure you want to do it?" Scott asks. "I can light it."

Stiles wishes people would stop asking that. He flicks the lighter, and the flame pops up on the first try, and he steps up to the pyre to drop the fire on the wood. It catches with a whoosh, but Stiles doesn't step back, even when the flames nearly touch his face. Lydia pulls him away which is probably a good thing because he suddenly has a vision of throwing himself on the pyre.

The flames leap towards the sky, and Stiles can feel the heat even from this distance. He stares directly into the fire, and all the colors blur together, and he can feel himself shaking. He hears Scott murmuring behind him, and a few moments later, footsteps head back towards the Hale house. Soon, it's just him, Scott, and Lydia. Stiles doesn't look at either of them.

"Hey, we need to talk," Scott says.

"I don't want to."

"Stiles, you haven't talked to any of us for the past five days." Lydia tries to get him to look at her, but he pulls away.

Scott takes the hand Lydia isn't holding. "I know you're beating yourself up about this, but it's not your fault. There was nothing you could do. That monster, it was strong. It had some kind of weird mind powers. It caught us off guard."

"We should've been paying attention."

"It'd been five years of quiet," Lydia says. "There was no way we could've predicted that a giant, lizard monster would attack us."

Stiles stays silent. The flames are slowly dying down, so he throws more kerosene on, and they jump up again. The casket begins to crumble, and Stiles' entire chest shakes. "Could you guys leave?" he says finally. "I want to be alone."

"Sure," Lydia says.

"We'll talk tomorrow." Scott claps him on the shoulder, then he and Lydia set off back towards the house.

Stiles stays there until the pyre burns all the way down to the ground, until the casket is nothing more than a pile of ash. He's pretty sure he saw a flash of arm, a glimpse of a blackened chin. He's run out of tears, and his whole body feels drained. He sees a large tin can on the ground and picks it up, turning it over and over in his hands. He approaches the dead fire and scoops some of the still hot ashes from the center into it. He'll leave the rest of them. He kind of likes the idea of the wind scattering the rest of the ashes - of Derek - around the forest.

He doesn't go back to the Hale house. He can't deal with the Pack right now, can't bear all the stares they'll give him, sympathy and pity and the need to comfort him. And he can't be in that house. Derek's house. Where Derek lives. Lived. There are too many memories. They kissed for the first time in the kitchen while Stiles tried (and failed) to teach Derek how to cook.

He walks through the woods, headed vaguely home, the can of ashes clutched to his chest. He's a little cold, and he can't tell if it's unseasonably chilly for the summer or if it's the lack of fire against his face, or if it's just everything that's happened. It takes about an hour to get home, and he quietly lets himself in. The lights are off, and the front door is locked, so he assumes his father isn't back yet.

He goes right upstairs and sets the dirty can down on his dresser without turning on the lights. Then he falls into bed, still in his suit. He doesn't sleep, just lies on his stomach and stares off to the side at the black wall. He hears his father return, hears him come up the stairs and stand outside his door. But he doesn't come in, just walks off.

Stiles doesn't get up when the sun slants through his blinds and falls across his face. Moving sounds like too much work, and he hasn't heard his father's car leave yet. He thinks he's just going to lie here all day. But apparently, that's not in the cards for him today, because Scott comes up the stairs and opens the door without knocking.

"Seriously, Stiles?" he says.

Stiles grunts.

Scott sits down on the bed by his feet. "Hey, there's something I want to talk to you about. It's not…it's not about Derek."

Stiles grunts again, noncommittally, so Scott takes that as an invitation to continue.

"So, at the party, um, that night. You, I don't know, did something to the monster. What was that?"

When Stiles doesn't answer right away, Scott lies down and scoots up until their faces are side by side, and he stares into Stiles' eyes until Stiles shifts and turns his head the other way. "What was that? Come on, man, talk to me."

Stiles rolls onto his side, still facing away from Scott, and his friend wraps his arm around his waist, pulling him close and making him the little spoon. His body is warm against Stiles' back. "It's – it happened after the nogitsune."

"What happened?"

"I still don't really know." Stiles' voice feels thick, and it's hard to make the words come out. "I think it left some of its power behind when it stole my body. I can," he hesitates, "I can sort of manipulate minds."

Scott pulls back, just slightly, but Stiles notices, and his heart sinks. Scott's reaction is exactly what he expected. That's why he didn't tell people that after the nogitsune was banished, after it stole his body, he still felt something rattling around in his head, like the shadow of the demon. He didn't tell anyone when the powers manifested themselves two years later, during his freshman year of college. He convinced a student who was bullying another kid into punching himself in the face and jumping into a lake.

"Manipulate minds? Like, control them?"

"I guess. I try not to use the power."

"Thanks for telling me, Stiles. Will you come hang out with us today? Everyone is worried about you."

"Not today," Stiles says.

Scott stays with him for a while, neither of them talking, until Scott's phone buzzes. "Pack business, I need to go. Do you…?"

"Bye, Scott," Stiles interrupts.

Scott kisses him on the back of the neck and climbs off the bed. He pauses in the doorway and looks back at Stiles' prone form. He leaves without another word.

That night, Stiles gets out of bed and goes to his closet, pulling out the triangular knife that he keeps in a shoebox on the top shelf. It's one of Allison's old blades. He likes to believe that her spirit guides his hand a bit when he uses it. Since Sheriff Stilinski still isn't home, he goes out the front door, knife tucked into his belt. He heads out into the woods. He's going to find Derek's killer, and he's going to make that creature pay.

When dawn comes and he's found nothing, he slams the knife into a tree trunk, once, twice, three times. He wonders what that blade would feel like slid over his own flesh, and he forces himself to put it back in his belt, tells himself to go home. His father's car is parked in the driveway when he gets back, and he thinks about going through his window to hide his activities, but that sounds like a lot of work, and he just wants to lie down, so he goes through the front door. Of course, his dad is up. "Stiles?" He comes out of the living room, dressed in his pajamas, looking concerned. "Where have you been?"

"Out," Stiles says. He knows he owes his father more of an explanation, but he knows that will just make him worry even more than he already is. So he just says "Out" then walks up the stairs and disappears into his room.

A month passes like this. Every night, he searches the woods, and every night, he comes up empty. He barely eats, barely sleeps, growing thinner and thinner, his hair long and lanky. He avoids the Pack, because he doesn't like the way they look at him or how they murmur behind his back. He knows Scott told them about his powers, and he knows it makes them nervous. They look at him like he's made of glass. He remembers his small stash of pot one day and digs it out, his fingers nimbly rolling a joint. The smoke burns on the way down, and halfway through, he feels numb, thankfully so. After he discovers that, it becomes a daily, a nightly ritual.

The next month passes in the same way, then two more. The rest of his Pack mates all have jobs in Beacon Hills. Even if they haven't moved on, they're dealing with their grief. Stiles thinks they've given up searching for the monster, that they believe it's left town, and they'll never see it again. But Stiles is stuck. He just keeps seeing Derek's death over and over again in his head. He doesn't have a job. He lives in his father's house, and some days, he loses track of himself. Hours will pass without him noticing, sometimes even the entire day. He'll find himself standing in a different part of the house, and he'll have no idea how he got there. He's not sure if it's the drugs that lead to this or if he just forgets that he's real sometimes. He likes that empty, floating feeling that the pot gives him, the way it makes it seem like nothing matters, the way it makes it just a little easier to interact with the Pack. Sheriff Stilinski tries to get him to talk to someone, a counselor, but he refuses, snapping at his dad a little more harshly than he intends to.

He takes the knife out a lot, wondering if it will take this away, whatever this he's feeling. He doesn't have a name for it. Sometimes he finds the edge of the blade resting against his forearm, halfway between his elbow and wrist. During the third month since Derek's death, he makes the first cut. He keeps the knife sharp, and it slides through his skin without much effort. It doesn't hurt, not until the blood wells up, and then it aches, a deep, hot ache. Stiles watches as the blood slides over the side of his arm which rests on his knee, watches as the drop soaks into his jeans. The pain is what he deserves for his failure. His failure to save Derek. His failure to stop the beast. His failure to find it again. He deserves this pain and the mark the cut will leave him with, a physical reminder of how terrible he is.

That night, he makes four cuts, one for each of the wounds that the beast carved into Derek. After that, the compulsion dies down, fulfilled, and he's able to put the knife away. He lies down and lifts his arm up so he can look at the cuts; four thin, even lines run across his skin just beneath the elbow. They're still leaking blood a little bit, and there's a blood-spotted tissue crumpled on the bed beside him.

The next morning, he starts wearing long-sleeved shirts despite the summer heat. No matter what he's doing, he can feel the ache and pull of the cuts, especially if he stretches his arm out, and a deep shame wells up within him at what he's done. But the shame doesn't stop him from doing it again.

Mostly, the compulsion comes at night when he's alone in the dark with nothing more than his thoughts for company, after he's spent several fruitless hours racing through different parts of the forest, searching for the creature which has disappeared, probably for good, though he refuses to accept that. The cuts aren't always even lines, aren't always parallel to each other like they were that first night. Each night is clustered together, on his non-dominant arm, on his thigh, once over his ribs and stomach where the beast's claws slashed Derek's stomach. He doesn't always use the triangular knife, either. He finds a little penknife, and he uses that blade, likes it because he has to work to get it to cut his flesh, has to pick and scrape and slide the blade over and over the same spot before he can get it to draw blood.

When the cuts scab over, he picks at them, making them worse, and this is a sort of compulsion, too. There's just something about watching the blood well up after he pulls a scab free. He doesn't know what that something is. He does know that it's a problem, but he can't get himself to stop, and he can't tell anyone about it, either. The words won't come out. He can't have people looking at him differently, maybe judging him, worrying, seeing him as weak, wanting to help. And part of him doesn't want to stop cutting. Because he deserves it.

During the fourth month since Derek's death, Sheriff Stilinski comes into his room and finds him like that with the knife resting against his skin. "Jesus, Stiles, what are you doing?" he yells and jumps forward to rip the knife out of his hand.

"Nothing, Dad, I…"

Tears well in his eyes when he sees the old and new cuts on his son's arms, a mosaic of hurt, and he searches for words. "I…how long has this been going on?"

Stiles doesn't answer. He doesn't really need to. His father knows it started after Derek's death. The specifics of when don't matter much.

"Why?" Sheriff Stilinski asks in a quiet, quiet voice. He sets the knife down on the dresser and sites beside him.

Stiles stares at his hands, imagining he can still see the red of Derek's blood on them. "Because I deserve it."

"No, you don't son. No, you don't." His father tries to take his hands, but Stiles pulls them away, angles his body away. "No matter what you're feeling, self-harm isn't the answer. I know this is hard, but that's not the answer."

"I thought it would make this feeling go away." Stiles' voice cracks.

"It won't."

He knows his dad is right, but that doesn't stop the urge to keep trying. It's like an itch.

Sheriff Stilinski doesn't want to leave him alone, but he has to go to work – he pulled the night shift – so he calls Scott and has him come over. Scott brings pizza and ice cream and drags Stiles down to the couch to watch TV, trying very hard to keep from looking at Stiles' arm. Stiles finds one of his plaid shirts and puts it on, making sure the sleeves are rolled down. "Stiles," Scott says after the sheriff is left. He sounds hesitant. "You're not going to…kill yourself, are you?"

"No." But Stiles has thought about it, wondering if it wouldn't be better if he joined Derek. He doesn't tell Scott this.

"Derek wouldn't want this. He wouldn't want you wasting away like this or hurting yourself. He would want–"

"Don't tell me what Derek would or wouldn't want!" Stiles yells, lunging to his feet so fast he upsets one of the pizza boxes. "What Derek would want is to not be dead!"

"Stiles, I–"

"Don't 'Stiles' me like I'm some kind of fragile thing that needs to be coddled! I've seen the way you and the rest of the Pack have been looking at me. You think I'm broken. You think I'll snap at any moment." Stiles is aware of the irony as he says this because he has, in fact, snapped and is now screaming at his best friend. "You look at me like I'm some kind of bomb. You think I'll go all Dark Sith on you, and I'll force you to do something with these stupid fucking powers of mine."

"Stiles, that's not what we think," Stiles promises, but Stiles is on a roll.

"I can see the pity in your eyes every time you look at me, and I can't fucking stand it!"

"Stiles, we're just trying to help. We all feel Derek's loss, we're all hurting. You shouldn't pull away from us like this. We need to stick together."

And there's that look again. Those big, puppy dog eyes, full of sympathy and pity and a need to fix Stiles. Suddenly, he can't stand it anymore.

"Get out." He points at the door. "Now."

"Stiles…"

"Stop saying my name like that."

"Like what?"

"Get out."

Scott's mouth flounders. Stiles seizes the front of his shirt and yanks him upright, shoving him towards the door. Scott turns, looking ready to say something, but Stiles' power flares to life without him telling it to and leaps through the open space to Scott. Scott stiffens, eyes wide and panicked, betrayed, as he looks at Stiles. Tears stream down Stiles' face as he tells his best friend to go.

Scott stumbles out the door, the door slams shut behind him, and Stiles is left in a silent house, his face wet and sticky.

Suddenly, he can't be here any more. Not in this house. Not in this town. It's all too small, and it all holds too many reminders of Derek. He runs upstairs and pulls a duffel bag out of his closet. He throws a bunch of clothes inside and his toiletries, then pulls out the box with Derek's leather jacket in it. Something cracks within him as he opens it, and for a long time, he just stares at it and cries. Then he tucks it reverently into his duffel.

There are two other things in the box. One is a photograph of him and Derek, him laughing, his head thrown back, Derek looking stoic just like he always does, though there's a hint of amusement in his eyes. The other thing is a little, black wolf plushy, fuzzy and squishy with big, blue eyes. Derek gave it to him before he left for college. "It's for when you get lonely," he says with that dopey little grin of his that only comes – came – out on rare occasions. "You can talk to it, and I'll hear you."

"I miss you, Derek," Stiles says to the plushy. "I really miss you. Please come back to me."

He rolls the black wolf and the photo up in the leather jacket. He hides his small stash in the bottom of his bag, tucked into an old Altoids tin so the scent doesn't worm its way into his things. The last thing he packs is the can of ashes which he found a better container for some time ago, and he also knows where his father hid his triangular knife and his penknife so he gets those, too. Then, no note, no nothing, he leaves his house and walks to the bus station where he buys the next ticket out of town to National City.


	2. welcome to national city

_A/N - Exciting news - I got my first tattoo today! I'm very hyped about it. Of course, I have to hide it from my parents for, like, the next year and a half because my mom has this dumb "threat" where she says if I get a tattoo before I graduate college, I'll have to pay for tuition myself, and of course I can't do that 'cause tuition in America is crazy expensive. But also, I was like fuck it, it's my choice. Anywho, sorry for the personal rant. Thanks for all your comments and kudos, please enjoy the second chapter!_

* * *

ii. welcome to national city

It's a long trip to National City, and Stiles has to change buses several times. He disables the tracker on his phone, and when he has a layover in the tiny, backwater town of Mt. Vernon, he withdraws all the money out of his back account, the $17,000 he's saved up over the years. When he gets back on the bus, he mostly just stares out the window with his headphones plugged in and tries to keep his mind blank. His cuts burn and ache, and he picks at the scabs a little absent-mindedly.

He arrives in National City at about eight in the morning, tired, bleary-eyed, and tacky-mouthed. He stumbles off the bus with his bag slung over his shoulder and looks around. National City is a clean city full of glittering skyscrapers and wide, well-maintained streets that bustle with people going about their business, most of them with phones in hand. Stiles rubs his eyes. He didn't have a plan when he got on the bus other than he had to get away, but he knows he needs to find food and an apartment. It doesn't have to be nice.

Stiles joins the flow of people until he finds a grocery store, an upscale Whole Foods, and he steps inside, the cool air rushing across his face. He blinks and yawns. He buys a very, very large coffee, a couple of power bars, a bar of chocolate, and a newspaper with apartment listings, then he finds a bench in one of the city's many parks.

He drinks the coffee as he flips through the paper, searching for something he can afford on his own. There's no way he can live with a roommate. He finds one that intrigues him, though that's not really the right word. He doesn't feel intrigue or much of anything. The apartment is simply a fair price and seems like it's in a decent location, so that's good enough for him. He grabs his duffel and the paper grocery bag and sets off deeper into the city, plugging the address of the apartment into his phone.

It takes Stiles about twenty minutes to get there. The building is just outside the center of the city, and it's tall with a lot of windows, the exterior clean with well-tended shrubbery. He's not really sure why the vacancies are priced so low, since the whole place looks pretty high end, but he steps inside behind an older man after the man types a code into the panel by the front door and finds the elevator to take him up to the floor the landlady lives on.

When he finds the right door, he sets his duffel bag on the floor and makes sure his sleeves are pulled down all the way. He knows he should try to do something about his rumpled clothing and his ratty hair, but he doesn't have the energy, so he just knocks. "Just a moment!" a woman's voice calls, and a moment later, the door swings open, revealing a middle-aged lady with prematurely grey hair and glasses on a chain perched on her nose. She takes in his crumpled clothing, his tired eyes, and his duffel bag. "Can I help you?"

Stiles holds up the newspaper. "I'm here about the vacant apartment. I'd like to rent it."

"Do you have money? I require a three month's down payment." She sounds a little skeptical.

He crouches down beside his duffel, unzips it, and counts out $3,000, holding it out to her. Surprised, she reaches out a hand to accept it. She takes another look at his single duffel bag but obviously decides not to ask any questions. Instead, she just goes back into her apartment to find the key and a contract. Then she shuts her door and leads him back towards the elevator.

"Why is the rent so low?" Stiles asks. "Building like this, location this close to the city center. I thought it would be higher."

They head up to the tenth floor. "Normally, yes. But we've had a few…incidences. Break-ins. Disturbances. Is that a problem?"

Stiles shakes his head. He's no stranger to disturbances.

They arrive at what's to be his new apartment, number 1011. There are only a couple of other doors along the well-lit, cheerfully decorated hall, and Stiles' is just off the center, across from what looks like an abstract painting of water. "My name is Eve, by the way," the landlady says, using her own key to unlock the door. "Eve Sammons."

"Stiles Stilinski."

"Pleased to meet you."

They step inside the apartment, and Eve shows him around. It has a spacious living room with wooden floors that's separated from the kitchen by an island, and a small bathroom and bedroom with a window that looks out over the city. The kitchen has appliances, and there's a bedframe in the bedroom but no mattress and not much else in the apartment. That doesn't really matter to Stiles. He doesn't need much.

"What do you think?" Eve asks.

"I'll take it."

"Then here are the papers and key." She slides a contract and pen over to him, and he signs it. Then she plops a key and a white business card into his hand. "Here's your key, and this card has the code for the front door on it."

"Thanks." Stiles slides them both into his front pocket.

"Do you need anything else?"

He shakes his head. "No. Thank you."

"Then I'll leave you to get unpacked. I assume you have more things coming?"

"Uh, yeah," he lies, and Eve accepts his answer.

"My phone number is on the card, too. Call if you need anything."

Stiles smiles in reply, and when she leaves, he sighs in relief, suddenly so, so tired. Even that small interaction was a lot for him, more socializing than he's done in a while. He sits down in the center of his living room, blinking. He knows that there are things he needs to do: get a mattress, buy food, probably cooking supplies, too, but now that he's sitting down, he's not sure he can get up again.

He takes a nap instead, curling up right there on the living room floor after he smokes another joint out of his dwindling supply, using his duffel bag as a pillow. Of course, his sleep is not dreamless, as much as he wishes it would be. He's back in the woods, but this time, there's no beast, no Pack, just Derek bleeding out on the ground and him trying to staunch the flood with his hands. And then it's Stiles lying down with his insides sliding out, but no one's around to stop them. He tries to call Derek's name, but only a low gurgle comes out. He knows he's dreaming, and he tries to jerk himself awake, but his body is frozen in place. He thinks his eyes open, because he sees the apartment wall in the lower half of his vision, but then the forest takes over again, and he can't figure out if the wall was real or just his imagination. He feels like he can't breathe, and he's terrified because he can't move. He's trapped. He tries to jerk himself awake again and again and again, and finally, his eyes snap open, and his whole body convulses. His heart thunders, and his breathing is ragged. He can feel himself shaking. He's more tired now than when he closed his eyes.

Stiles pulls out his phone to check the time and finds that it's nearing dinnertime. He's been asleep for several hours. There's a voicemail from his father; he deletes it without listening to it. He eats the bar of chocolate for his dinner then slowly pulls himself upright and heads into the bedroom. There's a small chest of drawers and a closet, and he dumps his clothes into the dresser. Derek's jacket he can barely touch, hardly look at, because it makes him want to cry. He hangs it reverently in the closet, in the back, out of sight. He puts the photo on the dresser but turns it to face the wall.

That just leaves the knives, the ashes, and the black wolf plushy. He hides the knives on the top shelf of the closet, puts the ashes by the photo, and holds the small plushy in his hands, rubbing his thumb through the soft fur.

"I moved to National City," he says to it. "I couldn't stay in Beacon Hills. I don't know. I can't be around the Pack. I don't like the way they look at me, like I'm crazy or about to break." He thinks about the pattern of cuts on his arms. "I guess I did kind of break. But you're everywhere in Beacon Hills and that hurt. It hurt a lot. And maybe here, I can make this right. Maybe I can avenge you."

After the dream he had and the paralysis, he doesn't want to go back to sleep, so he smokes half a joint and leaves his apartment and wanders around the city. He doesn't know what to do without his nightly hunts, so he just walks and walks and eventually goes blank. When he comes back to himself, it's morning, and he doesn't know where he is.

Stiles sighs, rubbing at his face, and pulls out his phone – there's another message from his father plus two texts asking where he is and a call from Scott – to fire up the GPS. Somehow, he's gotten to the far side of National City from his apartment. It will take him over an hour to get back if he has to walk, and he doesn't have any money on him for the bus. He sighs again. There's nothing else to do but get moving.

Everywhere he goes, every store he passes, he sees evidence of that hero, Supergirl. She's splashed across every magazine and newspaper, her image on all the televisions. Her hair is brown highlighted with blonde and falls over her shoulders in gentle waves. She's strong and confident and capable, her eyes earnest. He read stories about her exploits and heroics back in Beacon Hills. She reminds Stiles a little of Scott. A do-gooder.

When he gets back to his apartment, he finds he actually has some energy, which surprises him, so he gathers some money and heads back out. His first stop is the grocery store, where he stocks up on food. Fruits and veggies, raw meat, pasta, spices, and ice cream. Lots and lots of ice cream. He carts the bags back to his apartment; he'll have to get some cloth bags – he doesn't like using so much plastic. He puts the groceries away, mostly because he doesn't want the ice cream to melt.

Stiles has one more errand to run for the day, and he heads back out into the city, using his phone to search for mattress stores. He finds one only a couple of blocks away, and he can feel a headache building behind his temple as he steps through the door. A very cheerful man in a red polo and a nametag steps up to him. "Hi, welcome to SlumberLand! Can I help you find anything?"

"No, thank you." Stiles remembers to be polite.

"Alright, come find me if you change your mind."

The frame in his apartment looked queen-sized, so he heads back to that section of the store and takes a look around. He doesn't much care which mattress he gets, so he just finds the cheapest one. He takes a deep breath before flagging an employee down. She rings him up, and he passes the cash over.

"Would you like us to deliver it? It's only an extra hundred dollars."

Stiles shakes his head. He's not entirely sure how he's going to get a queen-sized mattress back to his apartment, but he doesn't care. He wants to do it himself. There are straps attached to the plastic wrap, so he uses them to heft the mattress off the floor and trundle it out the door. The thing is heavy, and he leans it against his shoulder. He gets a few odd looks as he hauls it through the streets. He's grateful for all the time spent training with the Pack, though the months barely sleeping and eating have weakened him, and he has to pause and rest a couple of times.

At the apartment building, he sets the mattress down to key the code in which he already has memorized. He rolls his shoulders to stretch them out and cracks his neck, then he picks the mattress back up. Sweat trickles down his back. He heads to the elevators, but when he tries to step inside, the top of the mattress catches on the doorframe, and he's jerked to a stop. Stiles frowns. He tries to shift the angle to get the mattress through, but nothing he does works.

"Fuck," he mutters.

Stiles has no choice but to head for the stairs. He doesn't relish the thought of hauling the mattress up ten flights. "Sir, do you need help?" the doorman asks as Stiles turns around and walks the other way.

"No, I've got it," he grunts, using a foot to push the stairway door open.

He starts up, one step at a time, hoisting the mattress after him bit by bit. Before long, he's light-headed, and at the next landing, he sets the mattress down and leans against the wall, tipping his head back and closing his eyes. Maybe he should actually eat something. Stiles gets moving again. He makes it up another floor before he takes a break, and in that way, he climbs up seven stories. As he steps onto the landing, he stumbles, dropping the mattress, and his foot slips on the last step, sending him crashing towards the ground.

But a pair of strong arms catch him before he can break his nose. "Woah there, careful," a woman says. She picks him up and places him on his feet, lifting him very easily.

"Thanks," Stiles says. "I'm alright." He turns around to smile at the woman, glancing up at her for only a moment before looking away. She wears her blonde streaked brown hair in a bun and a pair of square glasses on her face. Her floral-print shirt is tucked into a pair of navy blue khakis.

"Do you need some help?" she asks, staring at him with concern while she pushes her glasses up. Stiles wonders what he looks like – it's been a while since he's looked in a mirror. Thin, ragged, hollow-eyed. It's been a few days since he's shaved, and his hair is getting long.

"That's okay. I don't want to trouble you," he says.

"It's no trouble, really." The woman smiles at him. She has that kind of infectious smile, bubbly and open, making him want to smile back, a feeling that surprises him. "Which floor are you heading to?"

"Ten," he replies.

Her face breaks out into an even bigger, glowing smile. "Hey, me too! I'll take this the rest of the way for you."

"You're sure it's no problem?" Stiles asks. He feels a little weird about getting help from a total stranger.

She answers him by stepping around him and lifting the mattress easily into the air by the straps. She practically bounces up the rest of the stairs, and Stiles has to hurry to keep up with her. He opens the door to the tenth floor so she can walk through, noticing that she's not even winded. Maybe she's an alien - her energy does feel a little different brushed up against his. "So which apartment are you?" the woman asks.

"Ten-eleven."

She grins and both cheeks dimple. "Hey, that's right beside me. I'm in ten-thirteen."

Stiles doesn't really know what to say to that, and he doesn't have the energy to come up with something, so he just smiles and nods. They reach his door, and he takes the key from his pocket, sliding it into the lock. "You can just leave the mattress here. I'll take care of it."

But the woman pushes past him and takes the mattress into his apartment. "Did you just move in?"

"Yesterday," he says. "Really, you don't have to do this. I can handle it."

"Is your bedroom back there?" she asks instead, moving through his living room towards the closed bedroom door. "When I moved in, there wasn't much in my apartment either. Hey, if you don't have any way to cook yet, do you want to come over to my place for dinner? My sister is coming over."

"Uh, sure." The word is out of his mouth before he realizes it. This woman is a force of nature, and Stiles feels a little flustered.

"Great!" She motions for him to open the bedroom door and carries the mattress over to the bedframe and sets it down. "I'm Kara Danvers."

She holds her hand out to him, and he shakes it. her palm is rough with callouses. "Stiles Stilinski."

"So I'll see you at seven, Stiles?"

"Yeah, uh, sure," he says, still not really sure why he's saying yes to this, but Kara is smiling at him, and it's so warm and sincere without trying to be, and he just wants to bask in that a little longer.

"Great! I hope you're hungry; I'm making lasagna!"

Stiles trails after her to the door and sees her out, shutting it behind her. He blinks as he turns around and stares at his empty apartment. What did he get himself into?

By the time the end of the hour rolls around, Stiles is jittery with nerves, so he stuffs a little pot in his small, glass pipe and waves his lighter under the bowl to calm himself down and smokes it by the open window, changing into a fresh plaid shirt when he's done so he hopefully won't smell overwhelmingly like pot. He doesn't bother locking up when he leaves – it's not like he has anything worth taking and he'll be right next door.

Right next door. Stiles finds himself frozen outside Kara's apartment, unable to make himself lift a hand to knock, suddenly convinced that this is a bad idea and he should just go back and eat ice cream for dinner. But then the door swings open, and Kara is standing there, beaming at him. "Stiles! Come in." She grabs him by the hand and pulls him into her apartment.

The open room, while identical in layout to his, couldn't be more different from his own bare living space. The walls are painted a cheery yellow color, and there are flowers on the kitchen island and in the center of the dining table and over by the windows. A blue couch dominates the back half of the room, across from a television, and bright paintings hang from the walls. There's a bit of clutter here and there – unruly stacks of papers, jackets tossed over chairs – but it just gives the place a warm, lived-in feel.

A woman stands up from the table as he comes in. Her dark hair is cut short to frame her face, and she wears all black – black suit coat, black tights, black tank top. Stiles' gaydar goes off. Her smile is smaller than her sister's as she comes towards him and offers him her hand. "Alex."

"Stiles." He's shaken a lot of hands recently.

"Sit, sit!" Kara encourages him, flapping her hands towards the table. "The lasagna just needs another minute."

He takes a seat across from Alex, and she holds a bottle of white wine out to him. "Wine, Stiles?"

Stiles panics just a bit. He hasn't had a drink since that night, and the thought of it makes visions of a bloody Derek flash through his mind. He quickly shuts them out before he loses his composure. "No. Uh, no, thank you. Just water is fine." He can't tell if Alex notices anything wrong.

She sets the bottle down and fills his glass from the pitcher of water instead as Kara brings the pan of lasagna over. She's not wearing oven mitts which Stiles thinks is a little odd – the pan must be piping hot – but he doesn't say anything. She serves him and Alex large slices of lasagna, and when the scent of spices, tomatoes, and cheese hits his nose, he realizes just how hungry he is. He forces himself to slow before he can inhale the whole thing in one bite. It's hard, though; the lasagna is incredible.

"Did you just move in?" Alex asks him.

Stiles swallows. "Yesterday."

Kara eats just as quickly as Scott and the other werewolves. "I hope you have more stuff coming? I didn't see much when I brought your mattress in."

"It's being shipped," he lies again. He might be in trouble in a few days when nothing shows up, but he'll figure that out later.

His phone rings then, startling him, and he pulls it from his pocket with an apologetic smile. The caller ID reads 'Dad'. "Do you need to answer that?" Kara asks.

Stiles shakes his head, declines the call, and puts his phone on do not disturb. "No. Sorry about that."

"No worries. So where are you from originally?" Alex twirls her fork in her fingers. Her stare is very intense, latched onto him the way it is.

"Beacon Hills." Stiles knows he should be saying more than just these short sentences, so he awkwardly carries on. "It's upstate."

"Why the big move? And to a city that's so dangerous? Wouldn't it have been easier to go to LA or San Francisco?"

Why the move? Now there's the question. I moved because I'm the reason my boyfriend is dead, and I was going crazy in that town, and I couldn't bear the way my friends were looking at me, and I was going to jump off a cliff if I stayed there a moment longer, and I needed to be someplace where no one knows who I am and what happened or about these manipulative powers I've got, and maybe I want that danger, the danger of living in a city constantly attacked by aliens, maybe I crave it, maybe I want something to attack me, maybe I have a death wish.

Stiles doesn't say any of this. "I just needed a change of scenery. Twenty-three years in one place; it was time to move on."

"What do you do? As a job?" Kara has finished her first slice of lasagna and is eagerly serving herself a second.

"I'm currently unemployed. I finished college about a year and a half ago – a double major in crime scene investigation and folklore. I'm still trying to figure out what kind of job I want."

When Alex picks up her wineglass, he notices she has a lot of tiny, nearly invisible scars on her fingers, similar to the marks that Allison had on her hands. "Crime scene investigation? Like police work?"

Stiles nods. "My dad is the sheriff in Beacon Hills. I was going to ask him to join the force before…" before Derek died, "…before I decided to leave. What about you guys? What do you do?" He turns the conversation away from himself and takes a bite of lasagna.

"I work in a lab doing research in biochemistry and molecular biology," Alex says, and Stiles nearly chokes. Holy shit, she must be crazy smart.

"And I'm a reporter at CatCo," Kara says.

"Wow, you two make me sound like a bum." Stiles tries to laugh, and it sounds a little bitter to him, but the Danvers don't seem to notice.

"You'll find your calling," Kara assures him.

Darkness descends over him. He thought his calling was to be with Derek as part of Scott's Pack, maybe fighting evil, keeping people safe, but that's all gone now, and all he sees when he thinks of the future is a grey mist.

He sees Kara glance at Alex, and he tries to shake the darkness, but it's got its claws in him now. "I-I'm sorry, I just remembered there's something I have to do. I should go," he says.

"No, come on, you have to stay for dessert." Kara reaches across the table and takes his hand, smiling so that her eyes crinkle. "When our mom was here this weekend, she brought her chocolate pecan pie, and it's literally to die for."

"I, um, I…"

"Why don't you take some to go?" Alex suggests, reading his face. She slides gracefully out of her chair and moves around the kitchen island, cutting two slices and putting them in a Tupperware container.

Stiles stumbles up. "Uh, yeah, thanks."

"Oh, and you can borrow some sheets if you want," Kara says. She disappears into the bedroom, and Alex comes back to the table to hand him the container. When he reaches out to take it, the sleeve of his shirt slides up just far enough to reveal part of a healing cut on the side of his wrist. He quickly pulls his arm back, tugging the cuff down.

He knows Alex saw; he doesn't think those eyes miss much. But she doesn't ask him if he wants to talk or if he needs help. She just says, "National City is a good place for starting over," and gives him a small smile.

Stiles nods.

Kara comes back and hands him a set of pale blue sheets, a pillow, and a floral comforter. "Here you go! Keep them as long as you need."

The sheets are soft in his arms and smell like detergent. "Thanks," he says.

Kara leads him to the door and opens it for him, giving him a grin. "It was great to meet you, Stiles. We should hang out again."

"Sure," Stiles says, and surprisingly, he means it. He likes the Danvers, though for some reason, that makes him feel a little guilty.

Stiles enters his apartment and sets the pie on the counter, then takes the sheets to the bedroom and fits them onto the mattress after taking the plastic wrap of, leaving it on the ground.. He stuffs weed into his pipe and lights it as he heads back into the kitchen, inhaling deeply and popping the top on the Tupperware. The two, large slices of chocolate pecan pie do look good. He smiles faintly as his mind slides back.

"Pie is just inferior cake," Derek said doubtfully, staring at the laminated menu of the little pie shop they were sitting in. Rain glistened on his hair and on the shoulders of his black leather jacket, and there were a couple of days of black stubble on his face.

Stiles looked at him, aghast. "How could you say something like that? Pie and cake are two totally different entities! Comparing them is like, like comparing pancakes and eggs!"

Derek flipped the menu over. "Pancakes are better than eggs."

"You're impossible." Stiles rolled his eyes, a smile fighting to be seen at the corners of his lips. "Look, pies have crust and filling, sometimes fruit, sometimes not, and cakes are made of, well, cake and frosting. They're totally different."

"Yes, they are. Because cake is superior."

Stiles shoved him in the shoulder. "Just get the chocolate and peanut butter cup pie."

Tears roll down Stiles' cheeks, and he puts the pie in the fridge, taking out a pint of Ben and Jerry's Half Baked ice cream and a spoon. He sits on his bed to eat it, wondering what Alex and Kara are talking about right now, if they're talking about him or if Alex told Kara what she saw. If Stiles had werewolf hearing, he would be able to eavesdrop. Curiosity eats at him, though he's glad he doesn't know. Probably better that way. Before he knows it, the whole pint is gone, and he stares a little forlornly into the empty container.

Stiles rolls over so he can drop the container on the floor and picks the wolf plushy up off the empty duffel bag. He sets the animal on his stomach, his head propped up on the pillow. "Hey, Derek." Stiles wishes the wolf's eyes were electric blue like Derek's are – were – but they're just two black buttons. "Met my new neighbor today. She's nice, invited me over for dinner with her sister. Of course, I ruined it, like I ruin everything." The itch is there suddenly, accompanied by the image of a knife digging into flesh, and he tries to ignore it. "And you're never going to believe this, but my new next door neighbor is Supergirl."


	3. game night

_A/N - Did I ever caveat that I don't do drugs and I don't really know anything about them? If not, please forgive any inaccuracies._

* * *

iii. game night

"How do I know she's Supergirl?" Stiles says to the little wolf. "It wasn't that hard to figure out, really. I'm surprised no one else has put it together yet. The glasses aren't a very good disguise. Supergirl and Kara's faces still look exactly the same. Same eyes, same smile, same dimple, same height and build. And she carried that mattress like it was nothing, so she either works out a lot, or she's not human. And she gives off a different, I don't know, vibe than normal humans or werewolves, though her sister is definitely human, so maybe Kara is adopted."

Stiles isn't entirely sure why he's telling the wolf plushy this, but talking aloud has always helped him order his thoughts. He always talks – talked – to Derek, but that's not possible any more. A wave of grief washes over him, and he crumples, drawing the comforter up over his head.

Sleep comes for him, heavy and deep, and of course, Derek is there, sitting at the dining table of his house and reading a paperback with a cup of coffee by his elbow. Stiles sits in the opposite seat and watches him without saying a word, just smiling at the way Derek's face twitches in reaction to whatever is happening in his book. But as soon as dream-Stiles realizes that he's happy and content, the scene changes, the lights dimming, shadows crawling across the table. Derek's book disappears as he looks up at Stiles. Blood seeps out of his mouth and coats his chin. "Why did you do this to me?" he asks. "Why did you do this to me? Why did you do this to me? Why did you do this to me?"

Stiles jerks awake, breathing heavily, trying to squeeze the image from his eyes. The itch is there, burning in his hands, and it wars with the need to just lie there beneath the blankets and stare at the wall, but the itch is stronger, driving him out of the bed and over to the closet where he takes down the pocket knife. Stiles lies back down. He makes one cut for each word.

 _Why_

 _did_

 _you_

 _do_

 _this_

 _to_

 _me?_

Dig, scrape, press, over and over again until blood wells up, dark and red, beading over his skin, and then he moves onto the next cut, his brow furrowed in concentration, one tooth biting at his lip. He hates that he is doing this, hates that he was so weak as to allow himself to come to this, but he can't make his hand stop. After the last cut, he folds the knife up and drops it to the floor, then he watches the blood ooze, wiping it away with a crumpled paper towel, until it finally dies down, leaving the side of his forearm raw and red.

Stiles' phone rings, and Scott's face pops up on the screen. Stiles bets his dad put Scott up to it. He doesn't answer. Hopefully, everyone will stop calling soon.

He forgets to eat and only gets out of bed because his bladder demands that he do so. As darkness starts to fall, the walls of the room close in around him, so he drags himself upright and puts on a jacket, sliding his triangular knife into the pocket sewn into the inside. He locks up after he leaves, trying to be at least a little responsible.

Kara steps out of the elevator just as Stiles reaches it, and she smiles when she sees him. "Stiles, hey! How's it going?"

"Just going for a walk," he says, the fresh cuts on his arm burning.

"I just got off work. Ms. Grant has us all working overtime on the next issue of Catco Magazine."

Stiles nods. His social skills aren't what they used to be, and he doesn't know what to say.

She pulls the strap of her bag up higher on her shoulder, her sweater bright pink. "My friends and I are having a game night tomorrow night. Do you want to come?"

"I'll let you know," Stiles says. It's hard to know how he'll be feeling in an hour, much less tomorrow night.

"Okay. Have a good walk!" Kara gives him another one of her beaming smiles and waves as she heads towards her apartment.

Stiles steps into the elevator and presses the button for the lobby. He walks outside into the gathering darkness, pausing to watch as the people of National City hurry or stroll down the sidewalks. Then he sets off, and his feet carry him towards the city's darker and dirtier streets. The roads are narrower here, and the buildings seem to lean over him, their windows dark. There's more dirt on the stone, and trash gathers in the corners or overflows from the garbage cans.

He stuffs his hands in his pockets and watches the ground as he scuffs along. If he's being honest, he's looking for trouble. He's looking for a fight. Maybe he's even still searching for Derek's killer (you're Derek's killer, the voice in his head says), even though he knows there's no way he'll find it in National City. He craves disaster.

A sharp and bitter smile slices into his face when he finally finds a fight.

A man steps out of an alley and blocks Stiles' path. A hood is tossed up over his head, and scruff covers the lines of his face. He wears a jacket that's too big, his eyes ice cold. He points a pistol at Stiles' face. "Give me all your money."

"I don't have any money," Stiles says blandly.

The man shakes the gun. "Want to rethink that answer?"

"No." Stiles moves just like Derek taught him to. Suddenly, the man is pressed up against the wall with the gun dashed to the ground, Stiles' hand on his throat, and the point of the triangular knife tickling his stomach. The man's eyes have gone very wide. "I think you might want to reconsider the whole mugging thing," Stiles says coldly. He tosses the man to the ground and then throws the knife down, too. "Pick it up."

"What?"

"Pick it up."

Shoving the man against the wall isn't enough. Stiles wants a real fight. A proper fight. He wants to feel bone beneath his fist, and he wants to inflict pain. The pain he feels. The pain Derek felt. The pain he wants to deal to that lizard creature.

The man grabs the knife and stands up, eyeing Stiles warily. Stiles walks slowly towards him, each step placed deliberately, his face stony cold, and when he gets within five feet, the mugger lunges at him, knife slashing, but Stiles bats his arm out of the way, a second later driving his knee in between the other man's legs. As he doubles over, Stiles slams his elbow into his back. The knife drops from the man's hand, clattering against the street, and then Stiles' knee crunches against his nose.

The mugger staggers away from him, holding his gushing nose, and stares at Stiles with wide eyes. "What – what the fuck, man?" he asks, voice muffled.

"You wanted my money. Come get it," Stiles says.

But the man runs away instead, scrambling down the street and disappearing around a corner. Stiles whirls around and slams his fist into the wall as hard as he can, letting out a shout of frustration. His knuckles come away scraped and bleeding. He punches the wall again, wanting to break something, to crush brick into dust, but he doesn't have the supernatural werewolf strength, and he just gets more bruises. He should've used his powers to make that man stay and fight.

Stiles staggers to the side, shaking, shocked by the thought that just went through his head. He leans against the wall and slides down until he's sitting with his head between his knees. He can feel his whole body trembling. He looks at his bloody knuckles, turning his hand over and over, watching the way his fingers shake. Then he fumbles in his pocket until he finds his plastic bag of pot and packet of cigarette paper. It takes him three tries to properly roll the joint because he can't really control his fingers, but he finally gets it lit and takes a deep drag. He holds the hot smoke in his lungs for a long time before slowly releasing it, and he closes his eyes, feeling his nerves calm, feeling his rage begin to bleed away.

When the joint is smoked down to a nub, he crushes it beneath his heel and stands up. He is numb now. It's better this way. He gathers his knife and stops after he puts it away, staring down at the discarded gun. Looking at it makes him feel sick to his stomach. He remembers pointing a different gun at his father, fully prepared to pull the trigger. Stiles kicks the weapon under a pile of trash and walks away.

He takes a long, circuitous route back to the apartment building, dragging his feet. The cuts on his arm ache, and his fingers feel swollen and stiff, and when he gets back, he puts a bag of ice on them and smokes another joint out the open window. The weed helps him sleep. He's grateful for that.

He wakes up late, near noon, and he's glad that the sleep was dreamless. He eats the chocolate pecan pie for lunch, and it's just as good as Kara promised, though his fingers are so swollen that he has trouble holding the fork The split skin on his knuckles looks raw and red. There's another missed call from his father. Stiles stares at the notification, touching the phone screen with a fingernail and wondering if he should call Sheriff Stilinski back. Instead, he types two words,

 _I'm fine,_

and hits send. Almost immediately, his phone starts to ring. Stiles sets the device down on the counter and ignores it. His dad leaves a voicemail. Stiles deletes it, his bruised knuckles ragged above the phone.

When dinner rolls around, Stiles realizes that Kara never said what time game night was and he never actually told her whether or not he would go. He wonders what game they'll be playing, a little surprised to find that he wants to go. He remembers Pack game nights; they played Dungeons and Dragons on Fridays. A knock comes at his door, and Stiles quickly snuffs out his joint before he goes to answer it. Out in the hallway, Kara beams at him. "Up for game night? I ordered some Chinese food. You can come over now if you want."

"Sure," Stiles says, rubbing at his nose.

Kara reaches out and grabs his hand, gently pulling it towards her so she can look at the scrapes on his knuckles. "What happened to your hand?"

"Nothing." He takes it back without looking her in the face. "Just slammed it against a wall on accident."

He's not entirely sure if she believes him, but she doesn't say anything, so he follows her over to her apartment. When he steps inside, two other men are already gathered around the containers of Chinese takeout on the table. One is a tall, African American man with a bald head and chest muscles that push at his light blue pullover just a little. The other man is quite a bit shorter with spiky, black hair and nervous hands.

"Stiles, I want you to meet my friends, James and Winn," Kara says, naming the two men by order of height. "Alex has to work late at the lab tonight, so she won't be able to make it."

"Hey." Stiles shakes both of their hands, tipping his palm up to hide his red knuckles.

"We have a nice, big smorgasbord of Chinese food, especially potstickers. Help yourself." Kara fixes herself a plate as she says this, so Stiles does the same. He's going to try to actually eat it.

Once the four of them have plates, they sit down on the couches. The table in between them has several board games stacked on top. "How about Pictograms to start?" Kara suggests, half a potsticker in her mouth.

The others agree, and Stiles finds himself sliding back in time.

 _It was a Friday night, and the Pack was gathered at the Hale house, all seated around the shiny dining table. It was the first night of their campaign, and they were waiting for Lydia to finish pulling all her documents up on her computer._

 _"I still don't understand why we're doing this," Liam said, turning his character sheet over. "Isn't Dungeons and Dragons for nerds?"_

 _Stiles reached over and punched him. "Because it's fun."_

 _"Alright, adventurers," Lydia said finally, all her plans in order. "Shut up and listen to your God." The Pack dutifully fell silent. "Now, you awaken on a beach that's empty but for what looks like the remains of a shipwreck. You're lying in the sand, and you're soaked, though you can't remember how you got there. The sun is hot overhead, the sky blue. It's about midday."_

 _"Do we know each other?" Scott asked._

 _Lydia shook her head. "You're all strangers."_

 _"I roll to seduce the druid." Stiles winked at Derek as he shook his d20 and tossed it to the table. He rolled a one. "Fuck. Plus four for charisma?"_

 _"The druid is not at all turned on by you," Lydia said as the rest of the party howled with laughter. "In fact, he's very creeped out by you and slowly backs away. He won't let you get within ten feet of him. Also you trip over your own feet, bang your face against something hard buried in the sand and take," she rolled a d4, "two damage."_

 _"No, my love!" Stiles stretched out a hand to Derek, but true to character, Derek leaned away from him._

"Stiles?"

Stiles jumps and blinks away the image of the Hale house. "Sorry?"

"We're going to get started. Are you alright?" Kara smiles at him.

"Yeah, I'm fine, sorry. Just a little tired." He quirks his lips up. "Whose team am I on?"

"Mine," Kara says. She cracks her knuckles. "Let's crush them."

Stiles quickly learns that Kara can't draw for shit, and she jumps up and down and waves her arms a lot as she tries to convey her meaning. Surprisingly, Stiles still gets it, and she's also a good guesser. They wipe the floor with James and Winn the first round. And the second round, too.

Stiles laughs and polishes off his plate of food, leaning over to steal one of Kara's potstickers, and she yelps with mock outrage, lunging after him with her chopsticks. He eats the potsticker before she can take it back. He's never seen a person look more betrayed.

They switch teams for the next game, and Stiles ends up with James. The breadth of the other man's shoulders reminds Stiles of Derek's, albeit dressed in brighter colors, and he fights down the wave of sadness as James stands up. "Alright, ready?" he asks Stiles.

Stiles nods, and Kara flips the little plastic hourglass over.

James picks up the first card. "It's a book. There are seven of them."

"Harry Potter," Stiles interrupts.

"Yes." James grabs the next card. "It's a bird, it's a plane…"

"Superman."

James pumps his fist while Winn curses. "Alright. Movies and books…"

"Lord of the Rings."

"Correct."

"What the hell?" Winn yells. "How did you get that from three words?"

Stiles shushes him, staring intently at James. "Shit, I don't know this one. I think it involves the color green?"

"Legend of Zelda."

Even James looks surprised as he says, "Correct", and then the sand in the timer runs out. James cheers as he slams the last card down to a chorus of moans by Winn and Kara. He leans over to give Stiles a high five.

"How did you get all those right?" Kara demands. "Those were the vaguest clues ever."

Stiles grins and winks. "Crazy intuition and mad skills."

"Just try to beat that," James says and gives Stiles a fist bump. Stiles makes sure to use his uninjured hand.

Winn stands up, and Kara tries to guess what's on the card, but they don't do nearly as well as Stiles and James. Stiles cheers when they win, laughing, and Kara throws an arm over her eyes in despair. Stiles reaches out to gather up the used cards to straighten them up into a nice pile, and as he does, the sleeve of his flannel, not secured by the button, slips up and off his wrist, revealing some of the scabbed over cuts on the sides and top of his arm.

"Ouch, what did you do?" James asks, brow furrowing.

Stiles' heart lurches, and he pulls his arm closer to him and twists it so the sleeve cuff falls over the cuts. The ones he made this morning burn. "I, uh, I fell. There were thorn bushes."

It's not even technically a lie. He did fall, just not quite in the way they think he means.

Winn whistles. "Looks like they were some serious thorns."

Stiles nods awkwardly and looks away, suddenly craving a joint.

Just then, Kara's phone rings, and she leans over Winn in order to pick it up. "Hello?" Stiles can't make out the voice on the other line, but Kara's face grows serious, and after about thirty seconds, she says, "Okay," and hangs up. "Alex needs my help. I'm afraid we're going to have to call it a night."

"Do you need help?" James asks, rising with her.

Kara shakes her head. "No, it's just a small problem. Leave all this. I'll clean it up later."

The four of them leave the apartment, and Kara locks up behind them, saying a hasty goodnight as she hurries towards the elevator. Stiles shuts himself into his apartment and serves himself another slice of that delicious pie to take with him to his bed. He opens up the newsfeed on his phone. The first thing that pops up is 'Supergirl Battles Massive Fire.' There's even a live stream, and Stiles smirks as he watches Kara zip around.

He sets the black wolf plushy up so it can see the screen, too. "Pretty cool, huh? She and Scott would get along well. They're pretty much the same person."

As he says this, a wave of homesickness washes over him. He misses Scott and his dad and the rest of the Pack. He opens up his contacts, and his finger hovers over Scott's number. But he doesn't dial it. He doesn't know what would happen if he heard Scott's voice. So he puts his phone on the bedside table and lies down instead, closing his eyes.


	4. an old familiar face

iv. an old familiar face

Two weeks pass. Stiles buys actual cooking supplies and his own sheets and blankets so he can return Kara's, and he shaves and gets a haircut, too, so he doesn't continue to look like a homeless bum. The itch dies down – it's still there but quieter – though he continues to go out most nights to roam the city's darkest streets to find…something. He's not entirely sure what. Maybe the lizard monster. Maybe another mugger to beat up. He hangs out with Kara, Alex, James, and Winn, and he very quickly figures out that Alex is not actually a lab technician but works with Supergirl, and that James and Winn are aware of Kara's secret. He doesn't tell any of them that he knows this. His dad and Scott don't stop calling. Stiles knows that he needs to answer eventually, but that eventually is not now.

On Friday night, he goes out to dinner with Kara and Alex to Noonan's, a local restaurant that Kara really likes. He's groomed himself for the occasion; shaved, hair cut, and laundry done. Alex drives them in a black SUV that screams Secret Government Vehicle to Stiles. When they arrive, Stiles hops out into the dying sunlight and straightens the sleeves of his black blazer. Alex wears her standard leather jacket, tank top, and jeans, and Kara has put on a yellow, pastel dress, her hair straight and falling over her shoulders. Stiles wonders how she gets her hair to curl so quickly when she turns into Supergirl and also where she keeps her costume when she wears short sleeves.

They enter Noonan's, Alex holding the door for the others. The inside is wide and spacious and full of dark, gleaming wood, a bar dominating the center of the floor, square tables scattered across the rest of the space. The hostess leads them to a table near the back, by the windows, so that the last of the day's sun falls across it.

Stiles sits so he can see the door and opens one of the menus. He hasn't eaten all day, and he's starving. He doesn't look at the drink menu. The idea of alcohol makes him feel a little queasy. So he orders a root beer instead when their waiter comes by.

"Have you started looking for a job yet?" Alex asks him as they look over their menus.

Stiles chokes a little. He knows he should probably be looking for work soon enough – he's draining the $17,000 he brought with him pretty quickly – but he has no idea what kind of job to look for. So he's been putting it off. And will probably keep putting it off until he's down to his last penny. "Uh…" he says.

Kara jumps onto the job bandwagon, too. "I think CatCo is hiring. Ms. Grant is looking for a new reporter. I could probably get you an interview."

Reporting? That actually sounds sort of intriguing. Stiles always did the research for the cases the Pack solved in Beacon Hills, and he enjoyed digging for clues and piecing information together. Reporting would be similar to that. It might be interesting. "Yeah, okay," he says.

Kara claps her hands together excitedly. "Yes! Great! I'll talk to Ms. Grant and set something up. I should warn you – she's kind of terrifying."

More terrifying than a Pack of psycho Alpha werewolves or a dark druid hell-bent on revenge or having your own body and mind hijacked by a Japanese chaos demon? Stiles doesn't think so.

* * *

The interview is scheduled for Tuesday at one o'clock. Stiles spends a sleepless night on Sunday worrying about it, though he doesn't allow himself to go out and wander the streets. He figures getting into a violent altercation right before a job interview isn't the best idea. He gets up early in the morning. He showers, shaves, combs his hair. He even makes himself breakfast: a cheese omelet and some fruit. Alex offered to give him a ride the day before, and she arrives at noon, so Stiles smokes a little weed out the window until she gets to the apartment building, then he sprays on a bit of cologne to cover the smell.

He grips the strap of his messenger bag as he hurries outside to where Alex's black SUV is waiting. He hops inside, smiling at her in hello. "Hey," Alex says. "You look good."

Stiles glances down at himself. He's wearing his black blazer, a dark green V-neck, and black slacks. He supposes he looks better than he has for a long time. It takes them about forty-five minutes to get to CatCo Tower in the noonday traffic, and by the time Alex lets him out in front of the main doors, Stiles' hands are slick with sweat, his heart is racing, and he wishes he had another joint.

"Good luck," Alex says.

All he can do is smile queasily at her.

Stiles heads into the building and finds the elevator, pressing the button for the correct floor. The metal box goes up, up, up, and by the time the doors ding open, Stiles has his nerves under control, sinking into his apathy just far enough to be calm. He steps out into a bustling room filled with desks and lots of wide windows to let in the sunlight. He sees Winn at one desk and James in one of the offices walled off by glass. Kara waves at him from across the room, and he hitches up his bag as he hurries over to her.

"You're a little early," she says, looking at her tablet. She's technically a reporter for the magazine, but Cat Grant still uses her as a personal assistant a lot of the time. "So you can just hang out here for a few minutes. Are you nervous?"

"No," he says.

Kara cocks an eyebrow in disbelief. "Alright then. Come on, I'll announce you."

He follows her to the giant office just to the right of her desk. The space is open and airy with a giant wall of televisions behind the desk and a pair of white couches in the center of the floor. Kara knocks lightly on the glass door, and the woman behind the desk looks up. She has wavy, shoulder length, blonde hair and is impeccably dressed, her green eyes sharp and intelligent as she scrutinizes him. Stiles feels like he's under a microscope, one that's magnifying the sun.

Okay, Kara was right. She is terrifying.

"Ms. Grant, your one o'clock is here," Kara says, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

"Thank you, Kiera, you may go," Cat Grant drawls.

Kiera? Stiles doesn't get a chance to ask Kara about it because she whispers, "Good luck" to him and turns around to return to her desk.

Stiles walks briskly up to the desk and holds out his hand, trying to act confident. "Ms. Grant. I'm Stiles Stilinski."

The Queen of All Media lets his hand hang there as she puts on a pair of tortoiseshell glasses and looks over his resume with an unimpressed expression on her face. Stiles awkwardly lets his hand drop. "You have no real reporting experience? Or writing experience?" Ms. Grant says finally, looking up at him, one eyebrow raised.

"Uh, no." Stiles resists the urge to scratch at the back of his head. He also wishes he could have a place to sit down. "But I majored in Criminal Investigations, so I'm pretty good at, uh, investigating." He hopes his face isn't as red as it feels.

"Uh huh." Ms. Grant doesn't sound impressed. Stiles knows he has to do something big to get her attention.

"You're lonely," he says and sees shock flicker through her eyes briefly. He's using the smallest bit of his power to brush up against her mind, but it makes him feel nauseous and disgusted with himself. "You're very good at pretending you're not, but deep down, you're so lonely. You have the perfect job, millions of people look up to you, and you're one of the most influential people in this country, yet none of that fills the hole inside of you."

Ms. Grant just stares at him, her eyes flat and a little alien. Stiles begins to worry that he's made a terrible mistake, but he presses on anyways. "You desperately want to know for sure who Supergirl is," he sees that she suspects Kara but isn't totally sure, "so you can thank her and tell her how much she inspires you."

"That's a cute trick." Ms. Grant drums her fingers against the surface of her desk. "How do you know all that?"

Stiles shrugs. "I'm just really good at reading people."

"I see." The drumming fingers get steepled before her face. "I like your honesty. It's refreshing. So many other applicants who have come through that door tried to flatter me or were too embarrassed to take ownership for their own skills."

"Life is too short for bullshit." Stiles knows this better than most. Then he cringes. Maybe saying bullshit in the middle of an interview is a bad idea.

Ms. Grant's face remains impassive and hard to read. She stares at him for a long time, so long that Stiles begins to grow uncomfortable, uncertain if he should say something, but he keeps his mouth shut. "Alright," she says finally. "I'll give you a trial run. Kiera will email you the details once I've decided what you first task will be."

"Thank you, Ms. Grant." He feels like he should bow – Ms. Grant exudes that much gravitas - but instead, he turns to leave.

"I looked you up." Ms. Grants voice stops him. Ice slides down Stiles' spine at the thought. He doesn't know what there is to find on him, but he can't imagine that any of it is good. He slowly spins back around. "Son of a sheriff. Your town – Beacon Hills, right? – has seen a lot of deaths over the years, and you always seem to be right in the middle of the investigation."

Stiles says nothing.

"The newspaper articles never say anything about the killer's identity." Ms. Grant watches him closely.

"Some things are better left unsaid."

Ms. Grant hesitates just slightly. "And I found an obituary."

Stiles stiffens, every line in his body going ramrod stiff and his face darkening into something hard as ice. Ms. Grant reads every expression that rushes across his face; anger, guilt, hate, incalculable grief. "I'm sorry," she says as he looks away, trembling hands clenched at his sides.

"I don't need your pity," he says in his ice cold voice.

She nods. "I'll have Kiera email you the details." She looks away from him, an obvious dismissal, and Stiles walks out of her office.

"How did it go?" Kara asks when she sees him, popping up from behind her desk. She sees his sharp eyes, and her smile collapses a little bit, so he tries to force some of the darkness away.

"It went fine. Thanks for setting this up."

Her smile comes back, bright as the sun. "That's fantastic! I'll see you tonight?"

"Uh, maybe," he says. Probably not, actually. He doesn't think he'll be in any mood to socialize.

Winn waves at him as he heads for the elevator, and once inside, Stiles slumps against the back wall, glad to be alone for a moment. Alex said she would give him a ride home if he wanted, but Stiles decides to walk instead. The afternoon sun beats down on his head, and he feels himself begin to sweat a little beneath his blazer. His phone buzzes in his pocket, and even though he knows it's probably another call for his dad, he pulls it out anyways. He's surprised to see Lydia's name on the caller ID.

Stiles debates answering but ultimately lets the call go to voicemail. He's too tired at the moment to talk. It takes nearly an hour and a half to get back to his apartment, and he feels a whole load of tension roll off of him when he closes the door.

Despite having fleshed out some parts of his apartment, the space is still pretty sparse. He doesn't have a couch or any furnishings in the living room, no dining table or even a chair. He does have a beanbag that he bought for five dollars, but mostly, he just hangs out on his bed or sits on top of the kitchen island to eat.

He feels antsy. Lying down or napping won't do, despite how tired he is, so he decides to bake instead. He thinks he's got all the ingredients for gooey chocolate brownies already. He gets started, pulling out his glass pipe and smoking a bowl from it as he does, and the actions quickly calm him down. He remembers doing this same thing with Derek a few years ago.

They were in the Hale house kitchen. It was bigger than Stiles' kitchen, and after they accidentally got flour in every nook and cranny during a mishap with the mixer, Sheriff Stilinski had banned them from baking in his house ever again.

Derek wasn't being very helpful. He was too busy putting his hands all over Stiles' waist and playing with his hair. He kissed Stiles just as Stiles tried to add the oil in, so he ended up spilling half of it across the counter. "Goddamnit, Derek!" Stiles pushed Derek away playfully to the sound of Derek's low, rumbling laughter.

Stiles grabbed a rag to map the spill up, but Derek plucked it away. "Sorry. But would you rather make brownies? Or would you rather kiss me?"

"I would rather have both."

Derek lifted him up onto the counter and trapped him there with his big, strong hands. He leaned in, pausing with his mouth just a hair's breadth from Stiles', then closed the rest of the distance, one hand knotting into Stiles' hair.

Kissing Derek was like putting that last puzzle piece into place. A sense of completion, of oneness. Usually, Stiles' thoughts never stopped. They just churned and spun and banged against the inside his skull. But Derek quieted all of them, silenced them with a single touch.

Stiles loved the feel Derek's hair under his fingers. It was impossibly thick and soft, and the prickle of Derek's stubble always made him laugh. That day, Derek tastes like Altoids.

Stiles broke away, grinning as he rested his forehead against Derek's. "I want brownies."

Derek's eyes twinkled. "Alright. We'll make brownies."

Stiles comes back to himself with wet cheeks and blurry vision. He wipes his face with a shaking hand and focuses on the brownies, mixing the ingredients together then pouring it all into a greased pan, the oven already pre-heated. He slides the pan inside, shuts the door, and sets the timer. He reads a book – Kara showed him the local library – until the time is up and uses oven mitts to juggle the pan out and put it on the counter. A lovely smell fills the apartment, sweet and chocolaty. It makes him smile.

He cuts them when they've cooled off and loads them onto a plate so he can take them over to Kara's apartment. "Coming!" he hears her yell when he knocks. A few seconds later, the door swings open, and Kara beams when she sees him, a floppy cardigan wrapped around her shoulders. "Stiles, hey! What's up?"

Stiles holds up the plate. "I made brownies, and I wanted to thank you again for getting me that interview."

Kara's eyes widen excitedly. "I love brownies!"

He smiles hollowly as she lets him in, and he sets the plate on the counter. Kara picks one up eagerly, and bliss melts across her face as she takes a bite. "God, these are good!"

"It's my own recipe. I used to make them with…" he trails off, covering it up by taking a square for himself.

"With who?" Kara asks, cocking her head to the side.

Stiles just looks away and shrugs. "Enjoy the brownies."

He moves for the door, but Kara reaches out and grabs his hand. "No, wait. Do you want to watch a movie? We don't have to talk."

Stiles looks back at her, and her eyes are open and earnest, kind. He nods. He wants to stay in the warmth of that kindness a little longer; it soothes his sadness and quiets the itch a little.

They decide to watch Blade Runner. Kara has never seen it before, and Stiles, as the Official Movie Connoisseur of the Beacon Hills Pack, knows that it's awesome, and they both agree that young Harrison Ford is a stud. They bring the plate of brownies to the couch, adding a pint of ice cream to the pile, and Stiles wraps himself up in one of Kara's blankets, a pillow squished against his stomach. A few of the cuts on his arm burn, but he ignores the urge to scratch them.

Thirty minutes into the movie, Kara scoots over so she can lean against his side, and Stiles lets her stay there, her weight warm and nice. He and Derek used to sit like this when they watched movies, and he tries hard to keep the sadness from swallowing him, focusing instead on Harrison Ford. He and Kara eat more brownies and ice cream for dinner, and when the credits begin to roll, Kara convinces him to stay by draping herself across him so he can't get off the couch. Stiles relents with a laugh, and they start Lilo and Stitch.

"Why does Ms. Grant call you Kiera?" Stiles asks a few minutes in.

Kara groans a little bit and rolls her eyes. "She started that when I first began to work for her, and she just won't stop. I think she's called me Kara…once, maybe? And that was only after I did something really, really well."

"Do you ever try to correct her?" Honestly, Stiles would be too afraid to try and correct that woman.

"I did once." Kara shudders from the memory. "It did not go well."

It's getting late when the second movie finishes, so Kara lets him get up, and she follows him to the door, carrying the plate. "Thanks for coming over," she says before he steps out into the hallway.

"Thanks for putting up with my mopiness." Stiles forces a laugh.

"I'm here if you ever want to talk," Kara assures him. He wonders how much she knows or suspects. He knows she saw the cuts on his wrist during game night, but he couldn't tell if she believed his lie about the thorn bushes.

He nods to acknowledge her words without committing himself. Kara leans forward and kisses him gently on the cheek, the smell of her mint shampoo all around him. "Have a good night," she says, and he smiles as he closes the door.

Stiles doesn't spend much time in his apartment when he returns, staying just long enough to exchange his blazer for a leather jacket – not Derek's, that one's still hanging in the back of his closet – and his slacks for dark jeans and sneakers, sliding his triangular knife through his belt.

Then he heads out into the night, walking swiftly towards a section of National City that he hasn't explored yet. It's some kind of industrial district with big, wide storage facilities mixed in with the factories. It's quiet here, most of the workers having returned home at the ends of their shifts, so Stiles has the streets to himself.

He walks for about a half hour before he hears a sound like a metal trash can being knocked over and rolled across the street. Stiles stops, a shiver going down his spine, and he steps back a bit so he can investigate. What he sees down the side street freezes his heart for a moment.

It's Derek's killer. The lizard monster. Its red scales glow slightly in the light of the street lamp, its eyes glinting. Its spiked tail knocked the trashcan over. Stiles sees that tail smash into Derek's chest, sees those claws shred skin and shatter bone.

Stiles' heart restarts all at once, racing forward at a thousand miles an hour as rage floods his body and takes over his mind. "You!" he bellows as he draws his knife. The monster looks over at him, black eyes flat and dead and without any recognition but for the threat he represents as he barrels towards it. The anger and hatred has completely taken hold of him. He's going to rip this thing apart, rend its arms from its torso, pop its eyes, tear that fucking tail off. He's going to make it suffer. Make it feel pain. Make it wish it had never heard of Beacon Hills. Make it regret killing Derek.

He lunges forward when he gets in range, but the lizard monster roars and bats at him with its tail, the spikes narrowly missing him as the meaty part drives all the air from his lungs. He finds himself flying through the air, and he hits the wall of the opposing building hard enough to make dust rain down around him as he falls to the ground. He doesn't feel any pain. Instead, he climbs back to his feet, face contorted in a snarl, and bellows in anger because the beast is climbing up the building, about to disappear.

Stiles races after it, teeth gritted, head tilted to the sky so he can keep it in sight. Even when it disappears, he can still hear its claws scraping across the stone. He pushes out with his thoughts, Get down here. When the beast tries to jump the next street, it stumbles, and slams into the wall rather than the next roof. It crashes to the ground with a shriek.

Stiles jumps forward, his knife arcing down as he lands on its back, but the blade skates off the scales without making a scratch. The lizard monster reaches back and wraps its giant hand around his chest so it can fling him off it. He hits the ground and rolls, coming back to his feet, ready to attack again. The monster climbs back upright and faces him, snarling. Stiles twirls his knife and prepares to attack, but the beast lunges forward before he can. He gathers his will and flings it at the lizard monster, freezing it in its tracks, his hand upraised to help him focus.

The lizard monster strains against him, its hallucinogenic power against his red-hot rage. Its limbs tremble, locked in place, and it howls at him. Stiles steps forward, though it takes a great amount of effort, like he's walking through cement, the lizard's power a wall between him and it. His head pounds, excruciating, as he takes another step, and he feels something warm and wet slide out of his nose.

He's going to do this. Seven more steps, and he'll be able to plunge this knife into its filthy heart. Another step, and his headache is an explosion, then a supernova, red and black lights flashing across his vision. The next step, and the beast begins to fight back, freeing its arms from his hold, its neck rolling. He's going to kill it, or it's going to kill him.

One more step, and the monster takes a step towards him as well. Then something slams down between them, someone dressed in red and blue, though Stiles can tell right away that it's not Supergirl; too tall, too masculine, too dark haired. He punches the lizard in the chest so hard that it flies backwards through three walls, disappearing from sight. Then the man turns to Stiles. "Are you okay?"

Stiles doesn't look at him, just pushes around him, and runs to the hole in the wall so he can search for his prey. But there's no sign of it, just dust and rubble and the innards of an empty warehouse. "Why the hell did you do that?" Stiles yells, fury pulsing through him.

"I just saved your life," the man says, sounding a little puzzled.

Stiles spins around to give this fucker a piece of his mind, but when he finally looks at the man, everything stops. His brain freezes, his heart turns to stone and drops to his shoes. He staggers back, pressing himself into the brick. He can't breathe. He – he–

Because the man standing before him, dressed in red and blue and wearing a cape, looks just like Derek. Same height, same build, same swell of muscle. He's clean shaven, but there are those sharp cheekbones, his grey eyes heroic rather than dark and brooding, his hair spiking up in just the same way as Derek's.

Stiles chokes, and his legs give way, sending him crashing to the ground. He still can't breathe, and he feels light-headed, lights flashing before his eyes, and all he can hear is a sort of rasping sound. The man, not-Derek, crouches down before him, looking concerned. "Hey, are you okay? Did that creature hurt you?"

Stiles lashes out, both palms slapping against that bright yellow S, shoving not-Derek away, so he can sprint off, desperate to be as far away from this man as possible. He runs and runs, feet pounding against the pavement, blood rushing through his head. Finally, he has to stop because he can't breathe, and he thinks he's going to fall over. He leans up against the wall and wipes a hand across his mouth. It comes away smeared with blood, and he can feel more leaking out of his nose. With shaking hands, he rolls a joint, smokes it, then rolls another and smokes that, too. It only calms him down a little bit.

He stumbles away, craving more distance between him and not-Derek. He wants something stronger than the weed. It's lost its touch, and he wants something that will turn this entire night into oblivion. His pot dealer sells other drugs, so he heads towards where he knows the man likes to hang out and he finds that the guy has LSD for sale. Stiles buys a tab with wooden motions.

He knows he should go back to his apartment before he takes this, but he doesn't want to wait, so he puts the tab under his tongue. His saliva dissolves it quickly, and he stumbles. Before long, all thought is wiped from his mind, the buildings and shadows stretching out around him as he wanders. He loses track of time, loses track of himself, just as he wanted. He's empty. A shell. Just a body moving through space.

"Hey, twink." An indeterminable amount of time later, a voice breaks through his haze, and Stiles turns slowly to see a man in a muscle tank and jeans glaring at him, swaggering, thumbs in his pockets. "What the hell are you doing in my streets?"

Stiles cocks his head slowly to the side. This man has dark smoke rising off of him and red flickering in his eyes. Stiles doesn't respond. He just smashes his fist into the other man's face, making him stumble back. Stiles hits him again and again, driving him to the ground, and then he beings to kick. Kick and kick and kick, letting all his anger and frustration rush out of his leg and into this stupid man's body.

The man whimpers and curls into a fetal position. Stiles doesn't care. Any scrap of self-control he has is gone. The man has warped into the lizard monster, and he's going to kill it.

Dimly, somewhere far in the background of his hazy mind, he registers a wash of red and blue light, hears the sound of shouting. Then hands grab his arms and rip him away from his prey. He bellows his endless frustration at the sky, tries to kick out with his legs, but he seems to have lost control of them. He feels something cold clamp around his wrists, feels a pressure on his head, forcing him down into a small space that he doesn't comprehend. The red and blue lights are disorienting.

"Derek," he says, tries to say, desperately hoping Derek will come save him from this hell.

His plea goes unanswered, the darkness claiming him for its own.


	5. the hopsital

**v. the hospital**

Stiles wakes up in a hospital. He comes up out of unconsciousness slowly, hazily, the white fuzz all around him sharpening into the lines of a room and a bunch of beeping equipment. There's an ache in the back of his hand, but other than that, he can't really feel his body. It's just a mound beneath the white blankets.

He wonders what he's done this time to wind up here. Melissa is going to kill him – his father, too. He hopes the others are alright as a small smile crosses his face; one plus of being in the hospital is that Derek will bring him food when he comes to visit.

A doctor enters his room, a woman with dark hair and skin, wearing brightly painted jewelry, not anyone he recognizes. She looks happy to see that he's awake as she scans her clipboard and walks over to his bed. "Welcome back," she says. "Do you know where you are?"

"At the hospital. Where's Melissa?" It's odd; Melissa is always the first person he sees when he wakes up here.

The doctor looks puzzled. "I don't know any Melissa. Is that your mom? Do you want us to call her?"

"She's my friend's mom," Stiles says slowly as he tries to figure it out. "She's a nurse."

"We don't have any nurses named Melissa here," she tells him. "Where does she work?"

It comes back to him, most of it at least. The fight with the lizard monster. Not-Derek. His heart seizes when he sees Not-Derek's face in his mind, so achingly familiar. He thinks he's going to break. After that encounter, everything is just kind of a blur. "Beacon Hills General Hospital, but I'm in National City," he says.

The woman nods. "Yes. Good. My name is Dr. Jeffords. Do you remember how you got here?"

He shakes his head. That part is just a dark blank in his mind. He has a vague impression of kicking someone, but he's not really sure.

"You were arrested," Dr. Jeffords tells him, "for assaulting a man in the street. You had marijuana and LSD in your system, three cracked ribs, a bloody nose, and a broken wrist. Can you recall how you got those injuries?"

Stiles shrugs. "I think I fell." He's not going to say he was attacked by a lizard monster. The doctor would believe him, he's sure of that (unless she decides it's just a drug-induced hallucination), but he doesn't want Supergirl or anyone else going after the beast. That kill is his.

As he says this, he sees her eyes flick to the cuts along his arm. They lie exposed on top of the white blanket in the short sleeve hospital gown. Some are red, raised scars, others scabbed over, some still open and raw from where he's picked the scabs off. They're ugly. So ugly. Shame wells up in him as he looks at them, and he averts his gaze before the itch can rise up too strongly at the sight. There's an IV in that hand, a manacle around the wrist, and a cast on the other arm.

He knows what the doctor is thinking. That he fell because he tried to kill himself. And maybe it would be better that way. No Not-Derek or lizard monster to plague him. No shame. No more self-loathing.

There's a knock at the door, and the doctor smiles at him briefly before going to answer it, stepping out into the hallway. After a moment, she returns. "Detective Sawyer wants to speak with you. Is that alright?"

Does he have any other choice? "Yes."

Dr. Jeffords steps aside to let a short, Latina woman into the room. She has long, wavy hair and a round face that would look kind if she weren't so serious. She wears a leather jacket, and a golden badge glints at her belt. The doctor leaves them alone, closing the door behind her.

"I'm Detective Sawyer," she says. "What's your name?" She takes out a small, black notebook and flips it open.

"Stiles Stilinski," he answers.

"Do you know why you were arrested?"

Stiles shakes his head.

"You assaulted a man. We had to pull you off him. You were on a lot of drugs."

"I think he called me a twink," Stiles says. Bits and pieces are coming back to him, tiny flashes of memory.

Detective Sawyer sighs. "I get it, I really do. But as a cop, I can't condone kicking someone's ribs in for any reason."

"How is he?" Stiles doesn't actually care.

"He'll live. He said he wasn't going to press charges. He seemed terrified of you when I talked to him."

That's something at least. Stiles shifts in his bed. Whatever they're pumping into him through the IV is starting to wear off, because his ribs are aching dully, as is his head. He tries to push himself up to sit a little higher, but the handcuff catches, and his ribs twinge. With a grimace, he settles himself back down.

"I'll unlock those." Detective Sawyer comes around the bed and pulls a key from her pocket, sliding it into the lock on the cuff. Stiles sees her eyes linger on the cuts up and down his arm, and he wishes for his heavy flannel. The handcuff drops away, so he slides his arm under the blanket. "Why don't you take me through the events of last night?"

"I don't remember a lot of it," he says, feeling out his words. "I think I fell while I was out on a walk."

"Were you already high?" she asks.

"Yes," he agrees. That seems like a good lie.

Detective Sawyer smiles a little bit and leans over him, hands rested on the bed, staring him in the eyes. "Now, why don't I believe you?"

"I don't know." Stiles meets her gaze and sends out a slim tendril of thought. Instantly, a savage burst of pain erupts behind his eyes, and he fights to keep his face even. I fell, he tells her even as he hates himself for it. Detective Sawyer blinks, confusion crossing her face, and she steps back. The effort leaves him feeling weak and woozy.

"Um, you, you fell," she says. Stiles nods as she flips her notebook shut and puts it away, still looking confused. "I'll come back to talk to you again later. For now, I'll put you back in the hands of Dr. Jeffords." She pauses, shakes her head, then walks out of the room, holding the door for the doctor.

Dr. Jeffords bustles around the room, checking the levels of his IV, looking over the bandages on his ribs and the cast around his wrist. "How's your pain on a scale from one to ten?"

Stiles thinks about it. "I don't know. A three?"

"What's your tolerance level?" Dr. Jeffords' brow furrows, and she looks bemused.

"I don't know. High." He shrugs.

She fiddles a little more with his IV, and the ache in his ribs begins to fade, and he feels like he's floating a little. "You had a couple of missed calls on your phone," Dr. Jeffords says. "So I called your dad while you were unconscious and told him where you were."

Stiles chokes, and his ribs spasm in pain. "You did what?" he splutters. "You called my father? Why would you do that?"

"He sounded very concerned. He's on his way here now." She sounds puzzled by his outburst.

"Shit," Stiles hisses. His stomach squirms. This is not good. He can't see his father, can't deal with all that worry, that anger, can't bear to see the look of disappointment in his eyes, can't bear to be reminded of that night. His father will no doubt drag him back to Beacon Hills, and he can't have that, either. "I have to get out of here." He tries to drag himself out of the bed, but his ribs cry out in protest, and his head thunders. He groans.

Doctor Jeffords pushes him back down. "You can't leave yet. You're still hurt, and I can't discharge you until Detective Sawyer gives the say so."

Stiles is angry enough that he tries to push into her mind to make her release him, but all he gets is an excruciating hammer blow to the skull. With a gasp of pain, he slumps back, clutching his head.

"See? Just lie down and rest."

"When my father gets here, don't let him come in," Stiles begs.

Dr. Jeffords' brow furrows. "Why not?"

But before Stiles can answer, the door bangs open, and Stiles' father rushes through, still dressed in his sheriff's uniform, an exhausted and worried expression on his face. When he sees Stiles in the hospital bed, his eyes widen. "Stiles, oh my God."

"Shit," Stiles whispers again.

"I'll leave you two alone," Dr. Jeffords slips quietly out of the room.

"What the hell, Stiles?" Sheriff Stilinski demands, practically yells. "You disappear, you won't answer any of my calls! All I get is a two-word text from you – 'I'm fine'! 'I'm fine', seriously, Stiles? Could you have chosen two less worrying words? Then when I finally do get a call from you, it's not you at all! It's a fucking doctor telling me you're in the goddamn hospital! That you've been arrested!"

"Dad, I–"

His dad cuts him off. "No, don't talk. I'm going to handle your debacle with the police, and then, you and I are going home."

"No, Dad, listen to me–"

But Sheriff Stilinski doesn't have any intention of listening to him. He jerks his hands, and Stiles' words choke. Before the sheriff can say anything else, though, Lydia sweeps into the room, purse looped around her arm, hips swaying, strawberry blonde hair bouncing across her shoulders. "Sorry, I was talking to the cute cop outside."

Lydia, thank God. Relief sinks through Stiles, and he smiles at her.

"She actually wants a quick word with you, Sheriff," Lydia continues. "I think she's at the front desk."

Sheriff Stilinski looks torn, glancing down at Stiles, but Lydia flaps her hand and ushers him out of the room, shutting the door behind him. Stiles lets out a long breath. "Thanks, Lydia."

"No problem. The detective isn't actually looking for him. I made that up." Lydia pulls a chair over and sits down, crossing her legs. "You look like shit."

Stiles snorts a laugh. It sounds rusty, and it makes his chest hurt. "Yeah, I've been better."

"What the hell happened, Stiles?" Lydia leans forward and takes his hand, her fingers soft and cold in his.

He sighs, looking down at the blanket over his legs. If there's anyone he would tell all this to, it's Lydia. He can't talk to Scott anymore. Not after what he did. "I couldn't stay in Beacon Hills, not after…everything reminded me of…I just couldn't. So I came here."

"I get that. But how did you end up in a hospital with several broken bones and a police officer outside your door?"

"Right. That." Stiles takes a deep breath, trying to figure out how to say it. It makes him ache for a joint. Or something stronger. "It's here, Lydia. The lizard monster that…"

Lydia's eyes widen, and her hand flies up to her mouth. "You saw it?"

"In the factory district," he says, nodding. "I chased after it, and I almost had it – God, Lydia, I almost had it." Tears blur his vision before he can stop them. Tears of anger, frustration, pain, sorrow. He was so goddamn close. Another minute, and he would've had his revenge. If it hadn't been for… "Before I could kill it, Superman swooped down and got between us."

"You met Superman? What was he like?" Lydia sounds eager, excited, her mouth curving into a smile, her eyes glowing.

"He looks just like Derek."

The smile falters. "Wh-what do you mean?"

He has to keep his voice detached and monotone in order to keep talking. "I don't mean he kind of resembles Derek. I mean he looks exactly like Derek. Same cheekbones, same hair. Same everything."

"Oh my God," Lydia breathes. "Hon, I'm so sorry."

"I don't need your pity," he snaps. It comes out a little more harshly than he intends.

Lydia flinches back. "I'm sorry, Stiles. I didn't mean – I'm sorry."

"No, I'm sorry. I know you're just trying to help." Stiles groans and lets his head drop back against the pillow. "Lydia, I can't go back to Beacon Hills."

She looks at him for a long moment then nods, her business face dropping over her. "And you won't. I'll make sure of it. I promise."

"But how?" Stiles looks at the closed door, expecting his father to burst through with a packed suitcase at any moment, and he uses his free hand to pull at his tousled hair. "Dad's on the warpath. There's no stopping him."

"Unstoppable force, meet immovable object." Lydia lets out a short laugh. "I can handle him."

He doesn't doubt that she can.

At that moment, Sheriff Stilinski steps through the door, obviously irate, Detective Sawyer close behind him. "So apparently, the detective didn't want to see me, Lydia." He spears her with his gaze. Lydia casually examines her nails. "Give me your address, Stiles. I'll start packing your things."

"No," Stiles says. It comes out as a whisper.

"Address, now, Stiles." Sheriff Stilinski starts towards his bed, and Stiles cringes back, but Lydia, bless her heart, steps in between them, scowling up at the sheriff. Stiles has been on the receiving end of that glare before; it's terrifying, but his dad doesn't seem bothered one bit.

"I'll leave you three alone," Detective Sawyer says awkwardly and edges towards the door.

Just then, Alex Danvers pokes her head into the room. "Maggie? Are you almost ready? We're going to miss our reserva–" She trails off when she sees Stiles in the hospital bed, battered and bandaged, a very short redhead between him and an angry cop. "Stiles?"

"Shit."

"Alright, everyone out," Lydia orders, shooing everyone towards the door, even Detective Sawyer. "Daddy Stilinski, go find a hotel. Cool off. We'll talk about all this in the morning."

Sheriff Stilinski looks like he wants to argue, but the scowl Lydia is giving him will allow none of that, so he slowly backs out of the room. Alex is the only one unaffected by the Lydia Martin Glare of Death™. "He's my friend," she says. "Can I talk to him for a minute?"

Lydia glances back at him, but Stiles shakes his head slightly. He's not ready for this conversation. Not yet. So Lydia frowns apologetically at Alex. "Maybe tomorrow. Sorry."

Alex nods understandingly, and when she leaves, she closes the door behind her.

"Budge over," Lydia says to him. As soon as he's made enough room, she climbs onto the bed beside him and stretches out, threading her fingers through his.

"I'm fucked up, Lydia," he whispers.

"I know, hon." She kisses the top of his head, and they lie like that for a long time, sides pressed together, her warmth soaking through his thin hospital gown. It's nice, comforting, and Stiles wishes he had a pause button he could press so he could just stay like this forever and not deal with all the shit that's coming his way tomorrow. "Do you want me to spend the night?" she asks at last.

Yes. "I don't think the hospital will allow that. Why don't you go stay at the hotel with my dad? Come back in the morning." Lydia nods with a small smile. She starts to roll off the bed, but Stiles catches her hand. "Could you maybe talk to Alex for me? Give her the bare bones of what happened? Her number is in my phone."

"Of course. Sleep tight, okay?" She leans over and kisses him again, something sad and a little bruised in her eyes. "I'll be back first thing in the morning."

But Stiles doesn't sleep tight. In fact, he doesn't sleep at all. The night nurse who comes in every few hours to check on him prevents that, and she won't give him much morphine because the hospital is already worried about his "drug problem", so he just lies there, aching, and stares up at the ceiling.

He knows he needs a plan for finding the lizard monster. He can't just keep wandering around the streets, hoping to catch sight of it. He needs to be methodical, thorough. He also needs intel, and a little glow bursts to life at the thought of doing research. He'll need tackboards and colored string, and he'll need to find people to stalk for information. Kara and Alex seem like good places to start. They have to have resources he can exploit.

With a grunt of pain, he reaches over and grabs the hospital's pad of paper and pen off the bedside table. Then he gets to work.

Before he knows it, the morning comes, and Dr. Jeffords steps through the door. Stiles quickly stuffs the notebook under his blanket. The doctor smiles at him as she bustles around the room with her clipboard. "How did you sleep, Stiles?" she asks.

"Just fine," Stiles says and gives her a smile. He wants out of here.

"And how is your pain?"

"A two," he says, thinking about it for a moment.

The doctor raises an eyebrow. "Is that the truth?"

"Sure."

Sheriff Stilinski barges into the room with Lydia close behind him. She looks a little harried, and she mouths an apology at Stiles. "How is he?" Sheriff Stilinski asks the doctor. He doesn't look at Stiles.

"Better," she answers. "The drugs are out of his system."

"How long until he can travel?"

"Don't tell him," Stiles says before he can stop himself. It's a panicked reaction. He can't just let his father pack him into a car, but the instant the words are out of his mouth, he knows those words are the wrong ones.

Dr. Jeffords looks awkwardly between the two of them. "I'd like to keep him one more night for observation, but after that, he should be fine to leave." She silently extricates herself from the room.

"Stiles, I'm not playing this game anymore." Sheriff Stilinski walks up to the bed and leans over it, staring down at Stiles with an icy sharp look in his eyes, the look that will brook no argument, the look that Stiles can't say no to. He glances away.

"I'm not going back to Beacon Hills," he says. It comes out more like a whisper.

"You don't get a say in this." Stiles has never seen his dad this angry. He's practically shaking, his eyes dark, brow furrowed. The corner of his mouth twitches, and his hands are balled up into fists, planted on the bed just a few inches from Stiles' leg. Stiles squirms away, just a little bit. He still can't look his father in the eye.

The sheriff picks up Stiles' phone and bypasses the passcode using a chip developed for the police force. "Hey, you can't do that," Lydia snaps, trying to snatch the device from him, but Sheriff Stilinski will not be denied, and he swats her hand away, intent on finding Stiles' address somewhere in his phone. Stiles sees the exact moment Lydia's composure cracks and she decides to discard any shred of deference she has towards the sheriff.

"Sheriff Stilinski!" She budges right up in between him and the bed, glaring up into his face, her back ramrod stiff, hands planted on her hips. Even the sheriff is taken aback. "You need to open your clogged ears and listen to me! Going back to Beacon Hills would be poisonous for Stiles. It would be so unbelievably bad for him. Get that through your thick skull!"

Stiles feels a long rush of gratitude towards her. His dad blinks with surprise and takes a step back, the anger draining from his eyes. He looks at Stiles, really looks, sees the cuts running up his arm, sees the bruises on his face and the bandages on his chest and the cast on his wrist, sees the broken, haunted look in his eyes. Sheriff Stilinski begins to cry. His hand goes to his mouth, and he staggers back. "Stiles, I-I'm sorry."

"It's okay." He's still whispering. He tries to smile at his dad. He's not sure if it works.

"What should – what should I do?" Now that his anger has disappeared, Sheriff Stilinski doesn't know what to do. He's lost. Stiles doesn't know what he should do either.

"You should go back to Beacon Hills," Lydia says. She carries on as Sheriff Stilinski tries to open his mouth. "I know you want to stay and make sure Stiles is okay, but I think it would be best for him if you leave. I'll stay here for a few days, if that's okay?" She directs this last part towards Stiles. He nods.

The sheriff forces himself to nod, and the tension finally floods from the room. He walks over to the bed, and Lydia steps aside so he can lean over and kiss Stiles on the forehead. Stiles feels his dad's tears hit his cheek. "Pick up the phone next time I call, okay?"

Stiles nods. He's crying, too.

"I love you." Sheriff Stilinski backs out of the room before it can get any harder, shutting the door behind him.

"Thanks," Stiles says to Lydia.

"That's what friends are for."

"You're kind of terrifying, did you know that?"

"People tell me this all the time."

He laughs, and it feels good, though it makes his ribs ache.

Lydia finds a stack of board games in a cupboard and brings them over, climbing onto his bed so they can play. They pass several hours that way, not talking about anything hard, just playing simple, childhood games like Chutes and Ladders and Checkers. He actually feels himself smile. Nurses come in every so often to check on him, and they seem pleased with how he's doing.

Around noon, Kara and Alex step through the door. Kara is distraught and worried, her eyes big behind her glasses, seeming desperate to rush over to Stiles and collect him in a big hug, but Alex is very obviously holding her back. Lydia glances across the board game at Stiles, and he gives her a slight nod, so she hops off the bed, scooping up her purse. "Let's grab a cup of coffee." Looping her arms through both Kara's and Alex's, she leads them out of the room before either of them can say a word.

Stiles starts to put the board games away, one hand clumsy in its cast. He pushes the blanket off his legs then swings them over the side of the bed, the motion making him a little woozy. He tucks the board games under one arm, taking the IV stand in the other hand, and then stands up. Immediately, a wave of dizziness washes over him, but he rides it out then starts to slowly make his way across the room. His chest aches, and his legs are a little weak. But it feels good. Now that he's out of the bed, he doesn't want to get back in.

Of course, that's the exact moment that Detective Sawyer walks in. He looks over at her awkwardly, feeling like he's doing something he's not supposed to. "Are you supposed to be out of bed?"

"Probably not." He puts the board games away and starts to shuffle back across the room.

"Look, I've decided to drop the drug charges," Detective Sawyer says, and Stiles' eyes widen though she's not done talking. "As long as you agree to get help and do monthly drug tests."

"Help?" Stiles says warily. His eyes narrow.

She sets a business card down on the bedside table. "Therapy. This woman is someone who has worked with the NCPD before. She'll report to me so I can make sure you're actually going, but she won't tell me what you talked about."

"What happens if I don't go?" he asks.

"Then I'll bring the charges back. You won't like that."

Stiles eyes her, trying to see if she'll crack and relent, but she's hard as stone. He's tempted to try and use his powers to get out of this, but the thought makes his stomach crawl with self-hatred, and when he reaches for the spot where his power is, he wants to throw up. "Fine," he huffs.

"Good," she says.

"How do you know Alex?" Stiles sits down on the edge of the bed with a slight groan.

Detective Sawyer looks a little surprised. "Oh, she's my girlfriend."

Stiles is torn. On the one hand, he now has ammo with which to tease Alex, but on the other hand, how awkward is it that he got arrested by his friend's partner?

"The doctor says you'll be released tomorrow. That's good," she continues. "Please refrain from wandering around late at night for a while."

"Sure," Stiles lies.

Detective Sawyer gives him a smile and leaves so he can lean back and try to get a little rest. Lydia returns an hour later, immediately joining him on the bed. "It's done."

"What did you tell them?" Just so he knows what the story is.

"Just that your boyfriend of several years died and that you've been having trouble dealing."

"Thanks, Lydia."

She snuggles in close to him. "No problem." Her hair smells like strawberries, tickling his nose. Even though she's just visiting him at the hospital, she's dressed impeccably. Her romper is red with little flowers on it, her feet encased in beige heels. Her lips are pink and glossy, and mascara makes her eyelashes long. Several bracelets jangle on one wrist.

"How is the Pack?" Stiles asks cautiously.

Lydia shrugs. "About the same as ever. Scott and Kira are together again. Current bets are that they'll last three more months. Liam is still a pissant. Malia has figured out how to shift in and out of her full coyote form, so that's cool. They all miss you."

"Has anything happened?"

"No, it's all been quiet." She shakes her head.

"That's good. That's really good." He yawns widely. "Do you mind if I take a short nap?"

"Not at all." Lydia pulls his head down until it's resting on her shoulder, so Stiles closes his eyes and falls asleep. In his mind, he sees Not-Derek, gleaming and resplendent in his red and blue suit. Stiles tries to banish him. He doesn't want to see Not-Derek. He wants to see his Derek. He focuses instead on Lydia's warmth pressed against his side, and that helps him slip into someplace dark and dreamless.

When he wakes up, Lydia is gone, but she's left a note saying she's just stepped out to get dinner for them. Stiles pulls out his notepad and looks over his scribbling, making edits and additions until the pad is nearly full. Lydia saunters in with a bag smelling of Chinese food, and Stiles' stomach rumbles. Dr. Jeffords arrives to check on him as they're finishing up.

"I'm going to release you tomorrow morning," she says, and Stiles grins. "Just promise me no more drugs and no more…falling."

Stiles sketches an X over his heart.

When the night nurse comes to kick Lydia out, Stiles gives her his keys and directions to his apartment, and she promises to be back first thing for his release. He settles in for the night, his ribs a dull ache. He wishes he had his black wolf plushy.

"What have you gotten yourself into this time?" Derek asked, his face etched with worry as he stood over Stiles' hospital bed. Stiles grinned up at him sheepishly, his whole leg encased in a white cast and suspended by wires.

"I ran into the rogue Omega in the woods. There wasn't time to call anyone, so I gave chase, and he, ah, threw me off a cliff." Stiles tried to laugh it off, but Derek didn't buy it.

"Goddamnit, Stiles!" Derek yelled. "You could've gotten yourself killed!"

"But I didn't," Stiles pointed out with a grin.

"One of these days, you will!" Derek punched the bed with his fist. "And then where will I be, huh? How many times have I told you not to engage werewolves by yourself?"

Stiles glared up at him, fists clenching, anger pulsing through his chest. "Then what the hell did you train me for if I'm not allowed to fight? There wasn't time for anyone to get there, and I wasn't about to let him get away. We've been chasing this guy for three months."

Derek gestured around him at the hospital room, eyes flashing red briefly. "And look where it got you! You can't keep going out on your own, Stiles! You're too – you're too–"

"I'm too what?" Stiles asked coldly.

Derek's mouth opened and shut a few times. "You're too human!" he shouted finally. "Too breakable!"

"I'm glad you think so highly of me." Stiles' anger had gone from volcanic to glacier, and he pointedly turned his gaze away from Derek. "I think you should go now."

"What?" Derek asked, shocked.

"Go away, Derek," Stiles repeated. He picked up his book and opened it.

With a huff of frustration, Derek spun on his heel and left, slamming the door behind him.

Stiles wakes up early the next morning, before the sun is up, so he climbs out of bed and walks over to the window to watch it finish rising, staining the sky a vibrant red. Lydia arrives around eight, coming in with Dr. Jeffords, a bag of donuts in her hand. She passes Stiles a maple long john. Once Dr. Jeffords is satisfied that he's okay to be released, she writes him a prescription for Vicodin and leaves so he can get changed.

"Thank you," Stiles says.

She smiles at him. "Don't undo all my good work."

Lydia doesn't leave while he changes out of his hospital gown. She doesn't even bother to turn around. Stiles isn't embarrassed (well, maybe just a little by how thin he's become); she's seen him without clothes many times before. The movement makes his ribs ache dully. They head to the front desk and pick up his prescription, then they leave the hospital. Stiles tips his head towards the sun, breathing deeply.

Lydia has a taxi waiting, and Stiles grimaces as he climbs inside. Lydia gives the driver the address, and they set off. "So, we need to talk about your apartment," Lydia says once they're moving.

"What about it?"

"There's nothing in it."

Stiles is aware of this. "I don't have a lot of money."

Lydia tsks and shakes her head. Stiles groans. He knows that look. That's her shopping spree look.

They arrive at his apartment building. Lydia pays the cabbie, and they climb out onto the street, Stiles holding his ribs. He has to walk slowly, but eventually, they make it to the elevator and then up to his apartment. Lydia and Stiles watch Netflix for most of the day while Stiles tells her about what he's been up to in National City. Just the good things like his new job and his friendship with Kara and Alex. He doesn't tell her that Kara is Supergirl. That's not his secret to reveal.

When dinner time rolls around, he heads over to Kara's apartment, knocking hesitantly. The door opens right away, and Kara flings her arms around him, her blonde hair filling his vision. "Oh my God, Stiles!"

"Ow," he wheezes.

"Sorry!" She lets go quickly, holding him at arm's length so she can look him over, concern written in every line of her face. "Are you alright?"

Stiles just shrugs.

"Do you want to stay for dinner?" Kara asks.

He shakes his head. "I think it's just me and Lydia tonight. Maybe this weekend we can all have a game night?"

"Sounds good." She smiles, but the worry doesn't leave her eyes as she pushes her glasses up.

"We'll talk later," he promises and returns to his apartment.

Lydia helps him cook chicken and rice, and they eat standing at the island because he doesn't have a dining table or chairs. There's ice cream for dessert, and then Lydia orders him into the shower. "You're getting stinky," she says.

Stiles sticks his tongue out at her but does as he's told.

Then they turn in for the night, both of them tucked into his bed. "I'm glad you're here," Stiles murmurs.


	6. dungeons and dragons

**vi. dungeons and dragons**

There's an email from Cat Grant waiting for Stiles when he wakes up:

 _I've got your first assignment. Clark Kent from the Daily Planet is in town for a bit, so I want you to shadow him for the week. Meet him at CatCo Tower 8am on Monday._

Stiles feels a pang of nerves as he stares at his phone. His first reporting assignment. He doesn't know if he should be excited or terrified. It's a good thing, he decides. He needs to start making money.

Lydia stirs beside him, stretching and yawning. She opens her eyes and smiles when she sees him, green eyes still doused in sleep. "Hey there, beautiful," he says.

"Shut up," she mumbles, covering her face with her hands.

He leaves her in bed and goes into the kitchen to make breakfast, his mind blank as he cracks eggs into a bowl and whisks them until they turn frothy. He cooks two omelets with ham and cheese and brings them back to the bedroom, a jug of orange juice under the crook of his arm. Lydia is mostly awake when he gets there, and she takes one of the plates.

"Plans?" she asks him, and when he shrugs, she continues, "I was thinking of going shopping. Want to come with?"

"No, thanks," he says.

"You sure? I'm shopping for your apartment."

"I trust your judgment."

After breakfast, they each get ready for the day. Lydia puts on a dark blue dress, make-up, and her beige shoes, purse hooked on her arm. Stiles brushes his teeth. She promises to be back by dinner then sweeps out of the apartment, pecking him on the cheek. Stiles has his own shopping to do, and he slides his arms through the sleeves of a flannel before he grabs his wallet and leaves.

There's a Staples nearby, and he walks there, moving slowly because his ribs still hurt. He buys paper, markers, three large cork boards, four different colors of string, and matching tacks. He carts it all back to his apartment where he sets it up in his bedroom. He draws a rough sketch of the lizard monster and pins it to the center of the middle board. A picture of Derek goes beside it, the two connected by a red string since he has no idea what the actual connection is. He pins a timeline on the left most cork board, listing the two encounters with the lizard monster along with the locations and a brief description of what happened. That's all he's got to go on for now.

When Lydia returns and sees what he's done, she sighs and shakes her head. "Stiles…"

"I'm going to kill it, Lydia," he says.

She stares at him for a long moment. "Alright." Stiles notices that she doesn't have any bags with her. "I went to Ikea and got you a table and some chairs along with a few decorations to brighten up the place. It's not much, but it'll be enough for now. It should be delivered within the next few days."

"Thanks," he says. Lydia smiles at him in answer.

His phone dings as Lydia puts a frozen pizza in the oven. He fumbles it out of his pocket. " _Game night tomorrow? Me, you, Alex, James, Winn, and your friend?" reads the text from Kara._

"Hey, what do you think about going to a game night at Kara's tomorrow?" Stiles asks Lydia.

"Sure, if it's D&D."

Stiles fingers fly across the screen. _"Lydia says just as long as it's D &D. She'll be Dungeon Master."_

 _"I've never played before. Sounds like fun._

 _"It is. 8?"_

She sends him a thumbs-up and a smile emoji.

Stiles doesn't see Lydia most of the next day. She's sequestered in his room, busy crafting the night's campaign. He doesn't mind. He sits down with a book and eventually dozes off in the sunlight streaming through the window. When he wakes up, he feels peaceful, forgetting about his broken bones for a moment. Eight o'clock rolls around, and Lydia packs up the blank character sheets, her dice (she carries her pouch of them everywhere), and her notes, and then they head down the hall to Kara's door.

They're the last ones to arrive, and Kara ushers them inside, giving them each a hug – the one Stiles gets is ginger because of his broken bones. The counter is set up with pencils and bowls of snack food, and Lydia claims the head of the table. Once the six of them have drinks and are introduced, they sit down.

"So how does this work?" James asks.

"It's easy. You create a character and then roll the dice in order to perform actions." Stiles looks over at Alex in surprise as she answers. She shrugs casually. "What? I played in high school."

They spend an hour creating their characters, following Lydia's instructions. Kara is a human paladin – lawful good, of course – and Alex creates a gnomish rogue, though she won't tell anyone her alignment. Winn has a lot of trouble deciding what to be, but he eventually goes with an elven sorcerer. James is a dwarven fighter, and Stiles makes an elven druid. Lydia smiles a little when she sees that.

"Alright, adventurers, are you ready?" Lydia asks, and everyone around the table nods. Lydia sifts through her notes, building the suspense, and arranges her dice in front of her. "You begin in a tavern in the town of Feldspar. You are all travelers, spending the night in this inn before you move on with your various journeys. The tavern is small. Ten circular tables dot the room, and there's a bar and a small stage. A bard with a fiddle plays on it. There are only six other people in the room."

"Are we seated together?" Stiles asks.

"No. None of you know each other. Suddenly, a man bursts through the door. He's a human and the constable of the town. He looks panicked and desperate."

"I get up and go talk to him," Kara says, sounding hesitant as she looks around the table for confirmation. Stiles nods encouragingly and motions for her to speak as her character. "Uh…Do you need help, sir?"

Lydia's voice deepens, frightened. "'M-monster! In the square!' and then the man faints, collapsing to the ground."

"Is anyone here a healer?" Kara asks the tavern.

"You're a goody-two-shoes paladin. Don't you have Heal?" Stiles' druid has an Irish accent. Carlisle Shamfor is also a bit of a dick. He winks suggestively at Kara.

Lydia, of course, notices. "Roll for seduce."

"Damnit." Stiles shakes his black d20 and sends it skittering across the table. He cheers slightly when it lands on a fifteen.

Kara raises her hand. "Yeah, my character is ace."

"You fail," Lydia tells Stiles.

"God, I never have any luck with seduce."

"Hey, didn't you guys hear that there's a monster in the square?" James interrupts. "Shouldn't someone, I don't know, deal with that?"

"Why don't you go do it?" Alex drawls. "You look like a big, strong dwarf with a very impressive axe." Her voice is definitely full of innuendo.

"Maybe I will," James sniffs, fighting off a smile as he tries to stay in character.

"Wait, should I try to heal the sheriff?" Kara asks. "Maybe he can tell us more about the monster?"

Winn has his fingers steepled together, a wise and knowing expression on his face. "I think you should. The more information we have, the better." As he talks, Lydia silently rolls her d20. Winn notices and narrows his eyes. "What?" Lydia just shakes her head then sets a timer on her phone. That's never a good sign.

"What do I do?" Kara asks.

Stiles leans across the table and points to her blue d20. "Roll this and then add the number of skill points you have for Heal."

Kara does as she's told. "Okay. Six plus four. Is that good?"

Stiles and Alex both make faces. "The sheriff mumbles something incoherently and shifts a little bit, but he doesn't wake up," Lydia says. She rolls her own die again. "The monster has killed someone."

"We have to go help!" Kara yelps. "Who's with me?"

"Will I get paid?" Alex asks, and Kara gives her a shocked and offended look. "What?" she asks.

"I'm always ready to break some skulls." James cracks all of his knuckles.

The rest of the party agrees, for various reasons. Winn is curious about the monster, wanting to study it in hopes that it will help him grow as a sorcerer, and Stiles shrugs blithely. Carlisle is bored and looking for something to do, so why not go fight a monster? Together, the five adventurers leave the tavern, off to be heroes and save damsels, or whatever.

* * *

 _"Welcome one, welcome all, to Mr. Fantigo's House of Wonders! Here, you will meet creatures you have never even dreamed of and see sights only imagined in the wildest of novels. I would like to welcome you personally, honored guests. Please, enjoy yourselves, and remember, anything is possible in the House of Wonders!" Lydia spoke like a sports announcer, her voice slightly nasally, using her hands as emphasis._

 _"This can't be good," Derek muttered._

 _"I say we get out of here," Scott agreed, ever the prudent wizard. "Though I'll admit I'm curious about these wonders."_

 _Malia rolled for Spot, her keen ranger eyes well suited to the task. She got a total of sixteen, and the adventurers looked at Lydia expectantly. "You stand in a long hallway dotted with three doors and a fourth one behind you but no windows. The walls are painted a fairly garish purple with yellow stripes, and there's a thick carpet on the floor, parts of which look tacky with some kind of thick substance. Abstract paintings hang from the walls, and there's an end table with a folded piece of paper on it about halfway down the hall."_

 _Derek's halfling druid, Stern Rex, tried to open the door behind them but found it locked, and he cursed. "Let me try to pick it," Stiles said, his rogue winking suggestively at Stern._

 _"Roll for seduce," Lydia ordered._

 _"Seriously?" Stiles demanded._

 _Lydia motioned for him to roll. "And remember, Stern already thinks you're a psychotic stalker." The entire Pack hid snickers behind their hands._

 _Stiles blew on his die a few times before tossing them across the table, praying for a high number. A little white fourteen stared up at him, and he added his +4 Charisma to it. "Alright, Derek, you roll, too," Lydia said. Derek obeyed, only rolling an eight. Stiles cheered and high-fived Scott as Lydia thought about it. "Seeing you smile and wink like that, Stern feels something shift in his heart, just a little bit. He starts to think that maybe Rissilium isn't so insane after all."_

 _"Yes, progress." Stiles pumped his fist. "I'm coming for you, druid." He winked again._

 _Liam rolled his eyes. "Every session. Weren't you going to pick the lock, lover boy?"_

 _"Oh, right." Stiles threw his d20 again, but it came up as a four. "Noooo," he groaned._

 _Lydia tsked. "And you broke your lock pick."_

 _"Fuck, that was my last one."_

 _"Hey, Mr. Fantigo, or whatever your name is," Liam snapped, his fighter brandishing his axe. "Let us out of here. We don't want to see any of your so-called wonders." He pursed his lips. "Maybe I can break down the door."_

 _"That's not the way the game works!" Mr. Fantigo's disembodied voice chirped, nasal and annoying._

 _Kira pulled the bowl of pretzels across the table towards her. Her character was a sorcerer specializing in transmutation. "Hey, didn't God say there was a piece of paper on the table? Maybe we should go look at it?"_

 _The adventurers agreed, and they walked down the hallway as a group, the burly half-orc fighter in the lead, just in case anything decided to jump out at them. Kira, or Denki, reached out to pick the folded piece of paper up._

 _"Wait, shouldn't we check for traps first?" Stiles suggested._

 _"Too late," Lydia said gleefully. "As soon as Denki picks up the paper, the floor opens up beneath you, and you plunge through into darkness."_

* * *

The monster in the town square is massive, easily fifteen feet tall and covered with fur. Its hands – a mix between human hands and animal paws – are tipped with long claws, and teeth fill its snout-like mouth. Its eyes glow a vicious yellow. The townspeople – most of whom are human but with a few elves and dwarves in the mix – run around in a panic. One man lies dead in the street, ripped to bloody shreds.

Alex tosses her d20. "I roll to Move Silently and find a hiding spot before the beast sees me. Fifteen plus four."

"That's successful," Lydia says. "Where would you like to hide?" The rogue sneaks away and hides behind the nearest house, disappearing completely.

"Excuse me? Mr. Monster?" Kara calls. "Could you please stop attacking people?"

Stiles thuds his head against the table. "We're all going to die."

"Goddamnit, Kara," Alex sighs.

"The beast bellows angrily and turns to face you. It has no intention of talking to you. You're not even sure if it can talk or if it has intelligence, but it definitely wants to rip you apart. Everyone, roll for initiative. Alex, you automatically get to first go since you're hidden."

Everyone rolls, Lydia acting for the monster. Stiles is second after Alex, then James, the monster, Winn, and finally, Kara. "The monster stalks towards you," Lydia says.

Alex drops her d20, and the rogue slips out of her hiding spot once the monster is past her and slices her dagger through its ankle. The beast shrieks as it collapses to the ground, hurt but not badly. Carlisle leaps forward to take advantage of the situation, spinning his staff, but rather than smashing it into the monster, he beans himself in the side of the head. Winn's sorcerer bites back a snort of laughter.

James the fighter is next. With a bloodcurdling roar, he launches himself forward, swinging his axe with as much brute strength as he can muster. The creature sways back, but the axe still slices through the front of its chest, drawing blood. Then it's the monster's turn, and it attacks Stiles, slashing with its claws, but, weakened from blood loss, it misses, leaving itself open, and Stiles slams his staff into its head, stunning it.

"I use Knowledge Nature," Winn says.

A chorus of protests echoes around the table. "No, attack it! It has to be almost dead!" James yells.

"I want to know more about it." Winn rolls his die. It's a twenty.

Stiles throws his hands up. "Oh come on! We waste our first nat 20 on a Knowledge Nature roll?"

"You are a veritable expert on this creature," Lydia says, holding back laughter. "It's called a wolfsburn, the lesser known cousin of the werewolf. The wolfsburn is much more vicious than its cousin as well as stronger and faster, though it has no human intelligence to guide it. It relies purely on animal instinct. Mostly, it keeps to itself in the forests it calls its home. It's weak to silver and blades but impervious to fire."

"Can I kill it now?" Kara asks, and the rest of the party nods.

The paladin stalks towards the weakened wolfsburn, sword at the ready. With one, great blow, she cleaves the monster's head in, dousing the cobblestones with blood. "Yeah, take that!" Stiles yells.

The wolfsburn changes, fur sloughing off as it shrinks, its limbs becoming more humanoid until a man lies before them, naked and decapitated. His features still have a wolfish cast, his mouth and nose elongated, teeth poking out from behind his lips. His nails are long and jagged, and scars adorn his limbs. "Who is he?" Kara asks.

The constable staggers out of the tavern and over to the adventurers, still looking distraught. "You – you killed it." He speaks with a strong, British accent.

"Will there be money?" the rogue asks. Carlisle sidles up to listen, interested in the answer.

"Do you know who this man is?" Kara interrupts, gesturing down at the fallen wolfsburn.

The constable looks at the bloody corpse, and his eyes go wide. "That's Shar Thomas. He disappeared over ten years ago."

"There's something we're overlooking," Winn says, looking thoughtful. The party turns its attention to him. "The wolfsburn keeps to itself. It doesn't come out into heavily populated areas." He looks to Lydia for confirmation. "So what the hell is he doing here?"

* * *

 _"You plunge through the darkness, the wind whistling through your ears. You don't know how deep this hole is, but you hope you're not about to fall to your deaths. Everyone, roll for a Dexterity Check to make sure you land on your feet."_

 _Kira and Scott got lucky even with their low Dexterity modifiers. Liam basically did a belly flop, breaking his nose and a couple of ribs, but he had so much HP that it didn't really matter. Malia rolled gracefully when she landed, and Stiles tumbled to the side a little awkwardly, though he wasn't hurt._

 _Derek had problems._

 _He rolled a one._

 _Even his +3 Dexterity couldn't save him._

 _"Saving throw!" Stiles yelled and chucked his die at the table. He rolled a fifteen. Lydia stared at him for a long moment, tapping her fingernails against the table as she thought it over, making Stiles nervous. "Alright. You dive towards Stern Rex and fling your body under his. He slams into you, and you both take," she tossed a d6, "six damage."_

 _"Thanks, Rissilium," Stern Rex said. "Maybe you're not such a creepy, horrible guy after all."_

 _"High praise," Stiles said with a wink._

 _A wicked smile hit Lydia's mouth. "Roll for seduce."_

 _"Oh my God, Lydia, really?" Stiles yelped. "We haven't even gotten a chance to look around yet."_

 _"Now is not the time to be thinking with your dick," Malia said, voice thick with badly suppressed laughter._

 _Maybe it was the fact that it was pitch black, but Stern Rex felt a stirring within his heart and his nether region._

 _"Focus," Kira ordered. "We need to figure out where we are. Scott, roll to Create Light."_

 _Still a little shaken from the fall, the wizard, Drom, managed to create a decent amount of light, enough to illuminate a three-foot circle around the party. They were standing on a rough stone floor, much different from the polished wooden slats upstairs. The air was cold, and a faint breeze blew across their faces. Beyond the stone floor, there wasn't much to see. Malia used her elven ears and her ranger skills to Listen._

 _A faint growl slipped over to her, nearly hidden by the gentle wind. "We're not alone," she said._

 _"Let it come," Liam growled, brandishing his axe._

 _"Hang on a second." Kira grabbed his arm to hold him back, shaking her head. "We don't know what it is. We can't just go charging into battle."_

 _"When is anything we meet ever friendly?" Stiles asked as Lydia checked the timer on her phone. He eyed her suspiciously._

 _"I say we head cautiously towards the growl," Derek suggested. "Malia, can you tell what direction it's coming from?"_

 _The quiet growl seemed to be coming from somewhere to their left, so the adventurers headed in that direction, Liam in front, of course. Stiles wished they had more light. Whatever was out there would see them a mile off, but they wouldn't see it until it was right on top of them. Malia kept her ears open, hoping to detect any attack before it actually happened._

 _Lydia rolled her d20 and compared it to Malia's most recent Listen roll. A malicious smile spread across her mouth, and Stiles felt his stomach go cold. A creature leapt out of the darkness and bowled into Liam, knocking him over and drawing blood, moving too fast for the adventurers to get a good look at it. Malia took the initiative and knocked an arrow to her bow, drawing and firing within the space of a second. The missile streaked through the air, gaining a spectral glow as it did, and buried itself in the creature's head. After a beat, the whole skull exploded in a flash of light tinged with red. Blood and brain matter splattered the walls around them._

 _"Woo, yes!" Stiles cheered. "Nice shot!"_

 _Malia took a bow._

 _The party gathered round to take a look at the body. It had a scaled head and wide, fish-like eyes, a long, forked tongue lolling out across the ground. Its hands and feet were webbed, ridged spikes poking off its spine. "What the hell is it?" Stiles asked._

 _Derek rolled for Knowledge Nature, but he knew nothing about it and had no choice but to shrug helplessly. There were no clothes to search, but it wore a purple crystal pendant around its neck, and Stiles pulled it off and stuck it in his pocket. It was probably important. Most glowing things usually were._

 _The party kept moving down the hallway, using the light from Scott's spell, until they reached a simple, wooden doorway. Malia reached for the doorknob almost immediately. Stiles tried to grab her hand. "Wait – don't you remember what–!"_

* * *

The adventurers – after a short pee break on Winn's part – head into the forest surrounding the village, searching for the wolfsburn's origin. Stiles communes with the trees, laying his palm on the rough bark and closing his eyes. "What?" the tree demands, old and slow.

"A wolfsburn came through here earlier. Did you see him?" Stiles says, looking at the others for confirmation. Alex nods in agreement.

"I did."

"Did you see where he came from?"

"From deeper in the forest."

Helpful. So helpful. "Which direction in the forest?"

A branch rustles, one that points straight away from them into the woods. "Thanks," Stiles says to the tree, and then, taking his hand away from the trunk, turns to face the other adventurers. "Well, what do you think? Should we head in that direction?"

Winn Senses Motive on the tree. Lydia cocks an eyebrow at him as she gives him her answer. "It's a several thousand-year-old tree. It doesn't care enough about any of you to lie."

"Good enough for me," Kara says, and the others agree, so they set off into the trees, traveling for several hours, always moving in a straight line, until they come to a deep, fast moving river.

Stiles glances over his character sheet. "Did anyone think to get Swim?"

Silence surrounds the table.

"I have Use Rope," Alex says and rolls her dice.

Her rogue pulls a long coil of rope from her bag, fingers working quickly to attach a bag of sand to one end, then she tosses it at a tree branch dangling over the middle of the river, keeping hold of the free end. "Uh, what now?" James asks.

"We swing across," Alex answers. She glances over at Lydia. "That's a Dexterity Check, right?"

Lydia nods.

"I'm fucked," Winn groans.

One by one, they swing across with varying degrees of grace, all of them successful until they come to Winn, whose -2 Dexterity Modifier fails him. He hits the edge of the cliff with his stomach and starts to slide into the fast moving water, but Stiles dives forward and grabs his hands, heaving the sorcerer up onto the safety of the grass.

"Thanks," Winn wheezes.

The party sets off into the trees, still (hopefully) moving in a straight line from where they started. Their best guess is that they travel for a few hours without coming across any sign of life, and by that time, it's getting dark, so they stop to make camp.

In the morning, there's someone sitting by their dead fire.

She's a small, wizened elf, her hair trailing all the way down to her toes, her long staff stirring the grey ashes. She keeps her face and her milky white eyes calm even as the adventurers leap out of their bedrolls and grab their weapons. "What the hell?" James yells, brandishing his axe near the woman's head. Alex disappears into a tree.

"Now, let's not be rash," Stiles says, placing his hand on the head of James's axe and pushing it down.

"Who are you?" Kara asks.

"I am Kamella," the woman says, voice low and tinged with an accent Stiles can't place. "I am the spirit of this forest. What are you doing in my woods?"

Winn rolls Knowledge Arcana on her staff, and his eyes widen when he feels the sheer woodland power coursing through it. "It's the most powerful thing I've ever felt!" he says, eyes aglow.

"A wolfsburn came into town," Kara explains. "We're trying to figure out where it came from. A tree pointed us in this direction."

Kamella rubs at her chin. "A tree told you, eh?"

"I'm a druid. I speak to the trees," Stiles says. He figures this will appeal to Kamella, what with her being a spirit of the forest and all.

But instead, Kamella's face darkens (Lydia's face has a sly grin on it as if she's been waiting for him to say that). "Druids," the spirit growls. "Always stealing the powers of my siblings and I for their own."

"Oh." Stiles quickly hides himself behind James.

"Do you know anything about the wolfsburn?" Kara asks to distract Kamella.

"Oh yes, that thing," Kamella spits with disgust. "It's been killing the creatures under my charge for years."

Stiles gets a sinking feeling in his stomach.

"So I finally decided that enough was enough and…drove it towards an alternative food source."

"I don't understand," James says as the rest of the party covers their eyes with their hands, his low Intelligence shining through.

"She pointed it towards the village," Winn explains, rolling to Sense Motive. Yes, Kamella is the reason the wolfsburn came to town, and no, she doesn't care that a person died, but she believes that she was in the right. She was protecting the innocent creatures who live in her forest. That's what matters to her.

"Are there more?" Kara asks.

"Yes," Kamella answers.

"Where did you send them?"

"To the West and to the East."

"How long ago was this?" Winn says.

"Two days."

Stiles curses quietly. The party draws away and converges around Alex's hidey-hole tree to confer. "We have to do something about her, right?" Kara says. "I mean, if we leave her, she'll just keep sending more dangerous creatures towards the surrounding villages."

Stiles taps the eraser of his pencil rapidly against the table, his leg jiggling in unison. "We can't kill her. She's just doing her job, protecting those under her jurisdiction."

"By putting others in danger," Kara points out.

"We take her staff," Winn interrupts before the full argument can break out. "I bet it's the source of her power. We take it, and she can't hurt anyone else." He lifts his head to look at Lydia. "She can't hear us right now, can she?"

Lydia rolls her die. "No, you're good."

"Cool. And she still doesn't know about Alex?"

Alex and Lydia roll against each other, and Alex wins, remaining hidden by the thick, leafy branches of her tree.

They lay out their plan – arguing about it for a solid half hour, though Kamella is more concerned with examining a leaf than wondering what they're doing huddled around a tree for so long – then they put it into action.

James and Stiles have the first task. Stiles transforms himself into a deer – the proportions are off and the antlers a bit wonky, but he figures it will work from afar. He sneaks around their campsite in a circle as James heads in the opposite direction without bothering to be sneaky.

Then James chases him straight back towards the fire and Kamella, brandishing his axe. Stiles bellows in distress. He's sure he's very convincing.

Kamella leaps up from her log, staff in hand, but Winn is there with a spell to trip her up, and the staff goes flying. Alex hooks her legs around a branch of a tree overhead and swings down to snatch it from the air, disappearing as quickly as she came.

When Kamella regains her feet, she shrieks with rage. "My staff! Where is it? What did you do?"

"Nothing," Winn says. Of course, he fails the subsequent Bluff roll.

"You think that is my only source of power?" Kamella bellows. "I have abilities you can't even comprehend! I have–!"

Alex drops out of the tree and skewers Kamella with the sharpened end of her own staff.

Kamella screams, long and loud, but she collapses to the ground, dissolving to leaves and vines.

"Yes, we did it!" Stiles cheers.

"Well, except for the two other wolfsburn, heading for towns in opposite directions," Kara reminds him.

"Oh, right."

"A problem for another night," Lydia says. "It's getting late."

Stiles checks his watch – it's nearing midnight. Where did the time go? He feels relaxed, happy, even, a grin curling his lips.

"That was awesome!" Kara crows. "I had so much fun!"

"We'll have to play again the next time I come to visit," Lydia says, and Stiles rolls his eyes. It's not if, it's when she comes to visit again.

They help Kara clean up the snacks, then one by one, head for the door, saying goodnight as they go. Soon, Stiles and Lydia are the last ones left. "Hey, you're going to CatCo tomorrow, right?" Stiles asks Kara. "Want to go together? I've got my first reporting assignment."

"Ooo, exciting," Kara says. "I'll see you at seven?"

"Sounds good."

He and Lydia head back to his apartment. "I should leave at that time, too," Lydia says. "You'll be okay if I go?"

"Yeah." He hesitates. "And I'll call if I'm not."

"Good." Lydia leans over and plants a kiss on his forehead, nearly having to hop to do so.

* * *

 _Game night was over. The party defeated Mr. Fantigo, stole all of his loot, and took control of his house of wonders. The Pack disappeared soon after, leaving Stiles and Derek alone. They plopped down onto the couch, Stiles half-splayed across Derek's chest, and turned on the TV, Stiles choosing something inane and mindless._

 _"So Rissilium finally gains some ground," Stiles said._

 _"Don't gloat. Your rogue is creepy."_

 _"You're just scared of his raw, animal magnetism."_

 _Derek growled, letting his fangs show just a bit._

 _"Don't be a dick." Stiles laughed and smacked Derek on the chest._

 _Derek's own laugh rumbled through his chest, and Stiles reached up to stop it with his mouth._


	7. stiles stilinski's new reporting job

_A/N - Sorry for the super long time between updates - I was running around Scotland with unreliable wifi the last time I was supposed to post, so I decided just to wait until I got back to Exeter. I hope this is worth the wait!_

* * *

 **vii. stiles stilinski's first reporting job**

Lydia has to drag Stiles out of bed in the morning because Kara wants to leave at seven, and that is so damn early. She pushes Stiles into the bathroom with the order that he shower and shave and tosses a set of clothes in after him, leaving Stiles standing on the cold tiles in his boxers, bewildered. He does as he's told, and though he won't admit it, it does wake him a little bit.

Once he's dressed in the black blazer, a Boston t-shirt, and the dark jeans that Lydia has picked out for him, he heads into the kitchen where she's made breakfast. And by "made breakfast" Stiles means that she put cereal in two bowls and set the milk jug down between them. Stiles hops up onto the counter to eat.

"Excited for your first day of work?" Lydia asks. She is, of course, impeccably dressed in a green dress and leather jacket, her make-up already on, and she leans against the counter with her bowl of cereal.

Stiles doesn't have the emotional range to feel excitement right now. "Yeah, I am," he says.

"Got everything you need? Pen, paper? Midmorning snack?"

"Yes, Mom." Stiles rolls his eyes. He pats his bag. He also has a small stash of weed in there. He's not going to tell Lydia that.

Lydia takes his finished bowl and moves over to the sink. "Are you sure you're going to be okay if I go?"

"Yes, Mom," Stiles repeats, and she laughs.

Her suitcase is all packed, and they meet Kara outside in the hall. She's wearing a yellow dress bright enough to blind. The smile she greets Stiles with is even brighter. Outside, Lydia's taxi is waiting for her, so Stiles wraps her in the biggest hug he can, smelling the strawberry scent of her hair. "I love you, Lydia," he murmurs.

"Love you, too, Stiles." Lydia rubs her back. "Promise you'll actually pick up the phone?"

"Yeah. You'll tell the others I'm okay?"

"Will do." She kisses him on the cheek, gives Kara a hug, and climbs into her taxi, waving as it drives away. Stiles watches her go for a moment and then follows Kara to her car, a little blue vehicle. She pulls carefully out of the parking lot and into traffic, and, just as Stiles suspected, she drives like a little old lady.

"You and Lydia are really close, huh?" she asks, both hands planted firmly on the wheel.

"I had a major crush on her from the fourth grade until about junior year of high school," Stiles says with a laugh. "She didn't know I existed that entire time."

"What changed?"

Lydia was bit by an Alpha werewolf, and Stiles met Derek.

"I don't really know," he says. That's almost the truth.

They arrive at CaCo just before eight o'clock after a quick trip to pick up Ms. Grant's latte. Stiles gets a black coffee with an extra shot of espresso because it's really fucking early and maybe all the caffeine will help him actually interact like a normally functioning human being. He remembers a different time when his dad would have killed him for having a drink like that because it would've had him bouncing off the walls.

Stiles and Kara take the elevator up, and Stiles loiters around Kara's desk for a minute until eight o'clock rolls around. Then he takes a deep breath and heads into Ms. Grant's office. She sits at her desk, typing away at her computer with a serious expression on her face. "Kara sent me with this," he says and sets the latte by her hand.

Ms. Grant gives it a long look and then ignores it. "I heard you were arrested and hospitalized this weekend," she says without ever glancing up at him.

"Um…" Stiles swallows, panicking that he's going to lose this job before he even starts it. He tugs his sleeve down over the cast on his wrist.

"I don't really care. We all have bad days. Just make sure it doesn't happen again."

"Of course." He won't get caught next time.

"Clark will be here in a minute," Ms. Grant continues. "Until then, just…stand in the corner and try not to breathe too loudly." She gestures off to the left, and Stiles moves, awkwardly examining a potted plant that's there.

It's one of the longest minutes of his life (he's counted every vein on every leaf of the plant) before there's a knock at Ms. Grant's door. "Ah, Clark, come in." Ms. Grant's voice goes from completely impassive and a little condescending to warm and flirtatious. "I want you to meet Stiles Stilinski. He'll be shadowing you for the week."

Stiles turns around, and his heart drops out of his body. It's all he can do to keep his legs from giving way beneath him because Clark Kent has lush, black hair, cheekbones to die for, and a physique Stiles would recognize anywhere. Square glasses perch on his nose, and he wears jeans and a plaid shirt under a cream colored jacket.

Clark Kent is Superman.

Clark Kent looks just like a clean shaven, country-boy version of Derek Hale.

Stiles forgets how to breathe for a moment. The walls are closing in. Don't freak out, don't freak out, he thinks desperately. His vision sparks black for a moment, and he reaches for the wall for support. This – this can't be happening. Not again. He –

"Stiles?" Cat Grant's voice cuts through his panic, and he blinks rapidly, tearing his gaze away from not-Derek – Clark Kent.

"Sorry, what?"

"Are you okay there?"

"Yeah, I just, uh, spaced out for a second."

"I know – he's very good-looking, isn't he?" Ms. Grant grins and winks at Superdouche.

Superdouche laughs a little awkwardly and sticks his hand out to Stiles. "Pleased to meet you."

Stiles stares at the hand like it's a venomous snake and doesn't take it. "Ms. Grant, could I talk to you for a second?" He steps up to her desk, leaning in to whisper in her ear. "I can't work with him."

"Why not?" she asks in a voice that is far too loud for his liking.

"I can't tell you."

Ms. Grant purses her lips, cocking her head to the side as she looks at him. "It's this or you don't get paid."

Shit.

Stiles turns to face Superdouche and forces out, "Nice to meet you." He doesn't shake the man's hand.

Superdouche's smile – bigger than Derek's – doesn't falter as he lowers his arm, fingers wrapping around the strap of his messenger bag. "Should we get going? I've got a lead on a story that I want to follow up on."

No. "Sure." Stiles wants some really strong drugs.

Stomach clenching, he follows Superdouche out of Ms. Grant's office. As they pass Kara's desk, she leaps up eagerly and rushes over to throw her arms around Superdouche. "Clark! You're here!"

"Hey, Kara, good to see you," Superdouche says, smiling as he hugs her back.

"You've met Stiles, I see!" She releases him and stretches out a hand to touch Stiles' arm. "We're neighbors, and Stiles, Clark is my cousin."

CatCo released months ago that Supergirl and Superman were cousins. Kara really shouldn't go around throwing out that information. People might start putting two and two together. He forces as smile. "Yeah, cool."

Superdouche claps his hand on Stiles' shoulder, and Stiles flinches, remembering a different hand falling in that spot. He clenches his jaw. He can't look Derek – Superdouche – in the face. "Shall we get going?" Superdouche asks.

"Uh, yeah, just…give me a second. I have to use the restroom." He hunches his shoulder so the hand falls off, and he hurries away across the open floor and past Winn's desk to the bathroom. He checks to make sure he's alone and then cracks a window open, fingers pulling out his weed and cigarette papers. He smokes the joint quickly, leaning out into the open air, and then washes his hands and spritzes a little subtle cologne (courtesy of Lydia, though he doesn't think she intended it for this purpose), staring at himself in the mirror.

His eyes look hollow, and there's still a slowly fading bruise on his cheekbone. He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, but when he opens them, the walls are shrinking in all around him, shrinking as his ribs shrink, and he can't breathe at all. He stumbles back, and his shoulders strike the wall, closer than expected, and he collapses, the room whirling around him. his heart thunders in his chest, and that's all he can hear, and, and, and – he, he can't. Can't breathe. Can't see. Can't think. And the bathroom is growing smaller all around him. and his ribs hurt. And he –

 _"Breathe, Stiles," a rough voice said. "You're here with me. Nothing can get to you."_

 _And Stiles looked up to see Derek's face staring back at him, cheeks covered in three days of stubble. Stiles sat on the floor of Derek's bedroom, wedged into the corner because the Nogitsune was coming back for him. He didn't know how. He didn't know when. But it was coming for him. It had already taken his body from him. What more could it want?"_

 _Derek held Stiles' sweaty hand in his, solid and warm. "I'll protect you."_

Derek's clean shaven face stares into Stiles', black glasses on top of high cheekbones. "Hey, buddy, are you okay?"

Buddy? Derek would never call Stiles 'buddy'. He blinks and realizes it's Superdouche crouched in front of him and not Derek. It's not-Derek. Stiles holds back hysterical laughter. "Sorry, um, sometimes I get, uh, panic attacks. I guess the nerves of starting a new job set one off." That sounds plausible, right?

"Do you want to go home? We can start tomorrow."

"No, I'm fine." Stiles stands, using the wall to help push himself up, realizing as he does so that maybe he can use this partnership to his advantage. If he follows Superdouche around, maybe he can find something out about the lizard monster. "What's this lead you've got?"

"I'm looking into three deaths that occurred a week ago. The police are finally letting me take a look at the bodies, and I've heard that they've got the name of a potential eyewitness."

Murders. Stiles can handle that. It's just like being back in Beacon Hills. "Lead the way," he says.

Superdouche nods. "Okay then."

Stiles follows him out of the bathroom, glad that they don't have to pass by Kara's desk in order to get to the elevator. Stiles tries very hard to keep from looking at Superdouche's ass as he walks because that ass looks just like Derek's ass which Stiles loves – loved – to observe. So he focuses instead on how much of a goddamn goody-two-shoes Superdouche is. The man smiles at everyone who walks by and even steps back to let another man into the elevator first. "Hey, how are you?" he says.

When Superdouche isn't looking, Stiles rolls his eyes.

Superdouche drives a Volkswagen Bug. It's yellow. Stiles stares at it disbelievingly. It isn't even one of those old fashioned bugs that you yell 'slug bug' when you see, which would have been mildly better. "You've got to be kidding me," he mutters.

"What?" Superdouche looks up from unlocking his door.

"Nothing," Stiles says.

He climbs into the car. Superdouche's seat is shoved back all the way, but it still looks too small for him. It's fucking ridiculous is what it is. There are even fuzzy black dice hanging from the rearview mirror, and the whole interior smells like apple spice. He misses the cool leather seats of Derek's Camaro, its forest pine scent, and the few pieces of glass that are always in the backseat because the windows have been broken so many times.

Of course, NPR comes on when Superdouche turns on the car, and Stiles shakes his head. He's also not surprised to find out that Superdouche drives just like Kara does, maybe even more like an old person. It makes Stiles want to bang his head against the dash.

"So tell me about yourself, Stiles," Superdouche says.

"Why?" Stiles asks.

Superdouche's smile flickers off his face for a moment, and Stiles feels pleased. "We should get to know each other if we're going to be working together." He glances over at Stiles with that smile again, and Stiles has to look away from his earnest face before the walls of the car start closing in.

"Fine. I'm from Beacon Hills, I majored in Criminal Investigations, and I like cooking."

"Why don't you like me? We've just met," Superdouche says, brow furrowing.

"Who says I don't like you? Like you said, we've just met." Stiles looks out his window to hide his expression. "I don't have an opinion about you yet."

"You're just giving off this vibe…" Superdouche trails off.

"That's just my face," Stiles explains. "And I've had a long weekend." Understatement of the year.

He can see through the mirror that Superdouche is giving him a doe-eyed, concerned look that matches the one Kara gives out so often. "What happened?"

Does Superdouche recognize him from the fight with the lizard monster? It was dark in the alley that night, but Superdouche had crouched down right beside him. "Took a tumble," he says, holding up his cast. His ribs twinge at the same time, and he wishes he were allowed to take his pain meds more than twice a day, and that the doctors had prescribed him something stronger. But apparently he is an "addiction risk."

"Ouch." Superdouche at least seems to accept this explanation.

They arrive at the hospital – the same hospital that Stiles spent the better part of the weekend in, much to his consternation – and Stiles holds his ribs as he unfolds himself from the car. "Have you ever seen a dead body before?" Superdouche asks as the two of them walk towards the front doors. "It can be pretty shocking."

"My dad is a sheriff," he says, and when Superdouche looks at him with a blank expression on his face, Stiles continues, "Yes, I've seen dead bodies." He doesn't mention all the time he spent in his errant youth searching the woods for said dead bodies. Or all the bodies he and Lydia discovered. Or the torn up corpses of his friends that haunt his dreams. Or all the poor saps the supernatural monsters killed over the years.

So yes. He's seen dead bodies. Probably more than this do-gooding, apple pie, hunk of a man.

Superdouche holds the door for him, which makes Stiles want to punch that perfect face, and then he chokes on his own spit when he sees who is waiting for them at the front desk. It's Detective Maggie Sawyer, and Stiles checks his steps so he can slide behind Superdouche and use those broad shoulders to hide.

"Hey, Stiles."

Stiles steps out from behind Superdouche, rubbing at the back of his head sheepishly. "Hi, Detective Sawyer."

"How do you two know each other?" Superdouche asks.

"Uh," Stiles says and doesn't answer.

"Through Alex." Detective Sawyer gestures down the hallway to the left of the front desk. "Shall we?"

Stiles nods quickly, half in thanks and half in agreement, and he and Superdouche fall in behind the detective. Stiles hunches his shoulders and stuffs his hands in his pockets, hoping he's not going to run into Dr. Jeffords, too. The morgue is in the hospital basement, and they have to walk down two flights of stairs to get there. Superdouche holds the door for Stiles and the detective because of course he does, and Stiles rolls his eyes. Derek would try to drop the door in Stiles' face because he thinks it's hilarious to watch Stiles yelp and flail.

The inside of the morgue is cold and chrome, the examining table dominating the center of the floor and the body compartments lining two of the walls. The overhead lights are harsh and white, and Stiles shivers. He's spent more time in morgues than he would care to admit.

The medical examiner waits for them, a middle-aged man with hair that's greying around the temples and wire-rimmed glasses on his nose. "Ah, Detective," the man says. His name tag reads Emerson, and his voice has a pretentious note to it. He reminds Stiles of Mr. Harris, his old chemistry teacher. Man was such a dick. "Good to see you."

"And you," Detective Sawyer shakes the doctor's hand. "This is Clark Kent from the Daily Planet. He's writing an article on the murders and wants to see the bodies. Can you pull them out?"

"Sure." Emerson opens three of the drawers, revealing three sheet covered bodies. "The first victim is Joe Walker, forty-three, found in Greenberg Park on the twenty-third."

He pulls the sheet down to the corpse's waist, and Stiles feels his blood run cod. The victim's throat is torn out, and deep claw marks scour his chest. Stiles has seen this type of wound before. On every single werewolf victim that came through Beacon Hills Hospital. He pulls out his phone to check the calendar. The twenty-third was the day before the full moon.

He knows what to expect from the next two bodies, and he's not disappointed. Savaged necks. Torn torsos. The third woman is even missing an eye because a deep scratch mars one side of her face. "Ben Ryerson was found on the twenty-fourth in an alley off 12th Street, and Chloe Smith died on the twenty-fifth in a dumpster by Tyesdale Avenue."

"Have you ever seen killings like this before?" Superdouche asks. Stiles is pleased to see that he looks a little pale.

"At first, we thought they were animal maulings – a mountain lion maybe." Emerson stops talking when Stiles snorts behind his hand. "Is something funny about this to you?" the M.E. snaps.

"No, no, sorry," Stiles says, coughing. "I inhaled some dust."

Emerson scowls at him. "Like I was saying, we thought they were animal killings until a witness came forward saying that they saw a man walking away from the dumpster where Chloe was found, not to mention that the wound patterns don't quite match that of any predator in the area."

"Almost looks like something a wolf would do," Stiles says to see if he can get a reaction out of anyone. Superdouche (obviously) knows all about aliens in the city, but does he know about the supernatural?

"There aren't any wolves in this part of California," Emerson tells him.

That's what they all say.

"Do you have the name of the eyewitness?" Superdouche asks Emerson, his notebook flipped open as he scrawls observations about the bodies. Stiles peeks over his shoulder – of course the man has perfect handwriting.

"Wounds are vicious, animalistic. Crime of passion?"

"Stiles says wolves – no wolves in California though. Look up wolf attacks."

"Made to look like animal attacks?"

"Aliens?"

"Her name is Chris Stoneware," Detective Sawyer answers for the doctor. "Her address is 320 Longfellow Street, apartment 3A."

Superdouche writes this down on the bottom of his pad and nods, smiling his bright-sun smile at both the detective and the doctor. "Thanks for your time and the information. We'll get out of your hair now."

"You're welcome." Detective Sawyer shakes the proffered hand. "Stiles, could I talk to you for a second?"

Panic stabs through Stiles. Oh God, can she smell the pot on him? "Uh, sure," he says with what he's sure is a sick smile.

Superdouche claps him on the back, and he nearly falls over. "I'll wait for you by the car."

Then Superdouche is gone, and Detective Sawyer wraps an arm around Stiles' shoulders, forcing him to stoop down, and leads him out of the morgue. "Have you called that therapist yet?" she asks him. He's glad she's at least considerate enough to keep her voice down.

"Dude, I've been out of the hospital for, like, three days," Stiles points out.

"So that's a no?"

He rolls his eyes. "Yes, that's a no."

"You need to call her by the end of the week."

Stiles wants to sass her and ask, 'Or what?', but he knows what that 'or what' will be. Drug charges. Him losing the ability to hunt down Derek's killer. He can't let that happen. "Don't worry. I'll call her tomorrow," he promises.

"Good boy." She gives him a one-armed squeeze. "And I've scheduled you a drug test for a month from today, so," she gives his shirt a sniff, "keep that in mind."

Stiles turns bright red.

Detective Sawyer walks him back to the front doors, giving him a smile and a wink. "Don't forget to make that call."

Stiles salutes her crisply, his smirk ruining it just a little, but he's pleased that he gets a laugh out of her. Then he walks out of the hospital and joins Superdouche at his dumb, yellow car, yanking the door open and folding himself into the seat. "Where to next, chief?" he quips.

Superdouche does not appear to register his sarcasm. "I thought we'd go talk to Ms. Stoneware. What do you think?" He looks over at Stiles like he honestly cares what Stiles thinks. Stiles, once again, wants to punch Superdouche in his perfect face.

He smirks slightly to himself. He remembers wanting to punch Derek in the face all the time in the early days of their acquaintanceship.

 _They sat in Stiles' Jeep, watching the high school and waiting for Gerald Argent to show up. It was supposed to be Scott and Derek on the stakeout, but Scott had been grounded by his mother because of his shitty grades, and she was literally sitting in his room, watching him do his homework. So it was Stiles and Derek in the Jeep instead. It was not fun, to say the least._

 _"Would you stop twitching?" Derek snapped, turning his head just far enough to glare at Stiles._

 _"Well, excuse me for being nervous while we're sitting in the dark waiting for a geriatric psychopath!" Stiles yelped, drumming his thumbs on the steering wheel while his leg jiggled._

 _Derek snapped over to wrap his large hand over Stiles' mouth. Derek's palm covered half of Stiles' face. "Keep your voice down," Derek hissed. "You're going to give us away."_

 _"Mumphgr humgrum," Stiles mumbled._

 _"What?"_

 _Stiles demonstrated what he was trying to say by licking Derek's palm._

 _Derek jerked his hand away as if he had been bit rather than just licked. "Ugh, you're disgusting! How old are you?"_

 _Stiles stuck his tongue out at Derek, and there came that annoyed glare again. "My point stands."_

 _God, Stiles would punch Derek if he weren't worried about breaking his hand or having his head torn off._

Stiles blinks back into the present to find that they're parked outside a brick apartment building. Superdouche is staring at him again. "Do you space out like that a lot? I said your name three times, and you didn't respond."

"Sorry, just…old memories." Stiles shoves the door open with his shoulder. "Shall we?"

Superdouche scrambles to join Stiles before he reaches the front door, and Stiles lets Superdouche do the knocking. They only have to wait for a minute before the door cracks open, held in place by a chain. A blue eye framed by blonde hair stares out at them. "Can I help you?" the woman asks.

Superdouche smiles disarmingly at her. "Chris Stoneware?" She nods. "I'm Clark Kent from the Daily Planet, and this Stiles Stilinski from CatCo Magazine. Could we have a few minutes of your time?"

"Sure, I guess. One second." The door closes, and Stiles hears the chain rattle before it swings open fully. Chris Stoneware is maybe five feet tall, wearing pajamas, and looking too tired for their shit. Stiles empathizes. She steps back to let Stiles and Superdouche inside then leads them into the living room. She gestures towards the couch. "Take a seat."

Superdouche smiles and obliges, but Stiles remains standing, slowly pacing around the room. Chris Stoneware lives alone. There are a few dishes waiting on the end table waiting to be taken into the kitchen, and the only photo on the wall shows a younger version of her with a pair of smiling women. Stiles sees white cat hair on the black armchair, but other than that, the place is fairly dirt and dust free.

"So what is this about?" Chris asks, eyeing Stiles as he prowls.

"We wanted to ask you about the night of the twenty-fifth," Superdouche says, sounding concerned and comforting and apologetic. "If that's alright."

"I already told the police everything, but I guess I can tell you, too." Chris shrugs.

Stiles examines her bookshelves. Most of them are historical fiction, and there's also a line of college textbooks that have a coating of dust on them. A set of matching blue crystals marches across the top most shelf, and Stiles prods one, though it doesn't let off any crackle of magical energy. Just regular rocks, then.

"I was walking home late after work that night, and I saw a dark shape walking out of the alley, which I thought was weird since the alley is a dead end. It was none of my business, so I ignored it until reports of the murder came out."

"Did you get a good look at this person?" Superdouche asks.

Chris shakes her head. "It was dark. Medium height. Medium build. Sorry, that's all I have."

Stiles hears a hitch in her voice, so slight that he wouldn't have heard it if he hadn't been listening for it. He turns from his investigation of the archway into the kitchen. "There's something else." He cocks his head to the side as he turns to look at her. "Something you didn't tell the police."

"I–" Chris stares at him, and she shivers. "The person looked at me for a moment, and I thought I saw a pair of glowing red eyes. Just for a second. It's stupid. I know. it was probably just my mind playing tricks on me."

Stiles makes a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat.

Superdouche stands, flipping his notebook shut. "Thank you for your time. You've been very helpful. Here's my card if you think of anything else." He hands her a slip of paper that he takes from the inside pocket of his jacket.

Chris leads the two of them to the door and sees them out. Stiles walks away, heading for the car, as Superdouche grins and chats and says goodbye. He has to jog to catch up with Stiles. "Did that thing about the glowing red eyes mean anything to you?" Superdouche asks as he unlocks the door.

Stiles doesn't know if Kryptonians can tell when one is lying like werewolves can, but he goes for it anyways. "No. I've never heard of anything like that."

He climbs back into that dumb yellow car with its dumb dice and its dumb NPR. "And how did you know there was something she wasn't telling us?" Superdouche continues, turning on the car.

"I'm good at reading people," Stiles says simply.

"There's just one more thing I want to check," Superdouche says, and they drive off.

A few minutes later, Stiles and Superdouche are parked on Tyesdale Avenue, near the alley and the dumpster where the body was found. The alley is still blocked off by yellow duct tape, but Stiles ducks right under it, moving with practiced ease. "Woah, what are you doing?" Superdouche whispers urgently, glancing around as if they're going to be caught at any moment.

Stiles glances over his shoulder and shrugs. "It's fine. I do this all the time."

Superdouche continues to hesitate, so Stiles huffs and stalks back to him, grabbing the man's very firm arm to drag him under the tape. "It's fine. There's no one else around. Come on, don't be a weenie."

Superdouche sighs but lets himself be pulled under the yellow police tape. Stiles lets go of his arm as quickly as he can and walks away to do his own investigating. He lets his senses widen, searching for anything that feels or looks out of place. On the wall near the dumpster, he finds five scratches dug into the stone, and he drags his fingers down the lines that they make. There's a werewolf claw embedded in the stone at the bottom of the scratch made by the ring finger. Stiles pulls it out and sticks it in his pocket.

"Find anything?" Superdouche asks.

Stiles turns so his body hides the scratches. "Nope."

"Me neither. Come on, I'll take you home."

Stiles nods and lets Superdouche do so. He expects the man to drop him at the front doors and drive off, but Superdouche hops out of the car instead, saying he wants to talk to Kara. "Join us for dinner?" he asks when they're standing on the tenth floor after a very quiet elevator ride.

"Not tonight," Stiles says, unlocking his door.

"Alright, I'll text you tomorrow then. It was nice to meet you, Stiles." Superdouche holds out his hand for Stiles to shake, and this time, Stiles makes himself take it, though he can't force himself to say, 'You too.'

Stiles disappears into his apartment and shuts the door, leaning up against it to take a deep breath. His hands are shaking. After another deep breath, he finds the glass bowl hiding in one of his kitchen drawers and lights up. Fuck what Detective Sawyer says about this drug test. He'll deal with that when the time comes.

He heads into his bedroom, pausing when he sees the glass cup on his bedside table. No. Nope. No. Don't do it, Stiles. He picks up the glass, sets the rim against the wall, and presses his ear to the bottom of the cup. He's such a bad friend. Kara and Superdouche's voices come through the glass, faint but still audible.

"How much do you know about Stiles?" Superdouche asks. "He's, I don't know, he's very angry."

"He's just prickly," Kara replies. "His friend told me his long time boyfriend was murdered, and he moved here because of it. He's nice. I like him."

"I don't think he likes me very much," Superdouche sighs.

Kara laughs. "I think he just doesn't like new people. Don't worry. He'll come around."

"He was there that night when I ran into that new type of alien. Did he say anything about it to you? He seemed…furious when I chased the creature off. He yelled, 'Why the hell did you do that?' at me."

"He hasn't said a thing to me," Kara says.

"There's something weird about that kid," Superdouche insists. "I don't know what it is. Just…be careful around him, okay?"

Kara laughs again, and Stiles imagines her throwing back her head and slapping Superdouche in the chest. "I don't need to be careful around Stiles. He's my friend."

Stiles pulls the glass away from the wall as their conversation turns to other matters, guilt itching at him for eavesdropping. At least Kara stood up for him rather than immediately dropping into suspicion because of what Superdouche said.

Stiles sets the glass down and flips his tack boards around, adding everything he knows about the three murders to the empty board: the names, dates, and injuries of the three victims, the story Chris told them, a doodled picture of a blacked out head and shoulders with red circles for eyes, and the werewolf claw which he balances on top of three red tacks. He doesn't know if there's a connection between this and the lizard monster yet, but in his experience, everything is connected. But man, is there a lot of red string on those boards.

A mysterious lizard monster, a murderous Alpha werewolf, and an alien for a neighbor. Sounds like the plot for a bad made for TV movie.


	8. therapeutic actions

_A/N - We have reached that point where I have no more complete chapters waiting to be uploaded, so I can no longer promise updates every two weeks. I've got part of the next chapter written but that's it. Luckily, I'm almost done with my finals and summer is nearly here, so I'll have more time for fanfic writing._

* * *

 **viii. therapeutic actions**

Stiles drums his fingers on the kitchen counter, staring at his phone. The card with the therapist's number is in his other hand, and his heart pounds as he swallows. He forces himself to unlock the device and dials the number though his hands are shaking too much to lift it to his ear, so he sets it to speaker and listens as it rings.

A woman picks up after the fifth tone. "Dr. Connors office. Dr. Connors speaking. How may I help you?"

"Hi, my name is Stiles Stilinski. I need to set up an appointment," Stiles stutters.

"Ah, yes. Maggie told me you would be calling. How's tomorrow for you?"

Stiles chokes. "Tomorrow?"

"Yes. Say 3:30?"

He doesn't have a reason to say no. "Yeah, I guess that's fine."

"Great. I'll see you then, Stiles. I'm looking forward to meeting you."

Stiles can't say that he feels the same. "Yeah. Sure. Bye."

"Goodbye." Dr. Connors hangs up, and Stiles breathes a sigh of relief, heart thundering. A moment later, his phone buzzes again, and he nearly flings it across the room out of surprise. But it's just a text from Superdouche – though in his phone, Superdouche is simply 'Clark Kent' in case anyone else sees his screen.

 _"I'll pick you up at 1 so we can interview the victims' families?"_ the text reads.

Stiles sends a thumbs-up emoji.

"Great! Looking forward to it!"

Stiles pulls a face and fake vomits.

He supposes he should get dressed, so he meanders into his bedroom, throwing on jeans and a zip-up hoodie, pulling open the closet to choose a coat to put on top. Derek's black leather jacket hangs in the back, and Stiles stretches out a hand towards it, his fingers halting just an inch from the sleeve. After a second, he pulls it down and slips his arms inside. The jacket is too big on him, the cuffs hanging three-fourths of the way down his fingers. The leather smells like Derek.

 _"It's cold," Stiles grumbled, wrapping his arms around his chest and rubbing his hands up and down his arms. His breath puffed out white into the air, and he swore that his nose was turning blue (he was well aware that he could not actually see his nose, but he was still positive that it was blue)._

 _There was no sympathy from Derek's corner as the two of them walked down the dark street towards the high school. "Well, if you actually dressed properly like I told you to before we left, you wouldn't be having this problem."_

 _Stiles glared at him. "Well, obviously, if both you and my father are telling me to do something, then I can't do it."_

 _"Obviously," Derek agreed with an eye roll._

 _Stiles looked at him sideways, eyeing Derek's black leather jacket. "You're a werewolf – you run hotter than us weeny humans do…"_

 _"What are getting at?" Derek asked, glaring at him suspiciously._

 _"Can I have your jacket?"_

 _"It's your own damn fault that you're cold!"_

 _Stiles clung to one of Derek's arms and looked up at him with big puppy dog eyes, an expression he had learned from Scott over the years. He even poked his lower lip out a little bit. "You don't want me getting frostbite, do you? Don't want my lips turning blue and falling off? I can do so many fun things with my lips."_

 _Derek cast his eyes up towards the night sky. "Well, when you put it that way…" He peeled his leather jacket off and tossed it over Stiles' head._

 _Grinning, Stiles wrapped himself up and snuggled deep into the coat. Derek looked him over and licked his lips. "You know what, it looks good on you."_

Tears prick Stiles' eyes, but this time, they're an okay sort of tears, and he leaves the jacket on.

He spends the rest of the hour before Superdouche arrives scrolling through his phone, looking for any mentions of the lizard monster on the local news. There is nothing. The lizard monster is like a ghost. He needs a bigger database. Maybe something owned by a secret government agency specializing in tracking aliens?

Superdouche texts that he's arrived, and Stiles stuffs his boots on his feet, sliding his knife down the side of the right shoe, tugging his jean leg over to hide the hilt. Just a hunch.

He meets Superdouche outside at that dumb yellow bug where Superdouche leans against the hood, flipping through his little notebook. He straightens up when he sees Stiles, and there's that smile that breaks Stiles' heart every damn time he sees it because it's so close to the one he loves and yet so different.

He blinks, looks away. "Uh, hey."

"Nice jacket," Superdouche says.

Don't talk about Derek's jacket. "Thanks." Stiles heads for the passenger door. "Where are we off to?"

"We'll go to the Smiths' first. It's closest."

Stiles nods and plugs the address Superdouche gives him into his phone, acting as designated navigator. There's another text waiting for him from his dad which he swears he'll answer sooner rather than later. It's only a ten-minute drive, and it's not long before they're pulling into a parking spot on the side of the street, Superdouche palming a fistful of coins from his pocket to feed the meter.

A store across the street catches Stiles' attention as he waits for Superdouche. Light blue lettering proclaims it to be CRYSTALS, and from the outside, it looks like just another kitschy, faux-Wiccan store; crystals in the windows, dream catchers and wind chimes hanging by strings, a fountain of a woman with flowing hair, water coming from her cupped hands, but what really interests Stiles is the symbol beside the store name - a spiral run through with an X.

"I'll catch up in a few minutes," Stiles says as Superdouche finishes with the meter and comes to join him by the curb. "I've got another lead to investigate."

"What lead?" Superdouche asks.

"I may have stalked Chloe Smith last night," Stiles says. "I saw that she was into Wiccan, witchy stuff – she checked into that store a few times." He gestures towards Crystals. "Maybe the shopkeeper knows something that could help."

Superdouche cocks an eyebrow. "Wiccan, witchy stuff?"

"Hey, don't knock it. It's actually really interesting." Yes, Stiles is well-versed in the Wiccan arts. He doesn't practice often – he mostly just knows the theory – but he finds it fascinating.

"I'll meet you back here then," Superdouche says.

Stiles nods, and they part. He hops up the steps to the store, the bell tinkling as he opens the door, and the smell of incense envelops him – the good kind, too. Stiles is impressed. The woman behind the counter has beads woven through her long hair, and rings adorn each finger. "Hey," Stiles says. "The moon is quiet tonight, isn't she?"

The woman's eyes widen as she puts down her magazine. "She's had a long day, yes. How can I help you?"

The symbol on the window indicates indicates that the shop is part of the Illysium Order – a group of practitioners, sellers, and stores across the country that know and use real magic, not just the fake shit that's sold to tourists, though they sell that, too, because they still have to pay their rent.

"I need some kind of tracking spell," Stiles says. "One that I can mark a person with."

"Sure, I've got that," the woman says. "Give me a sec." She hops off her stool and sashays away, multi-layered skirt swinging, and disappears into the back.

Stiles examines the goods on the counter as he waits. He runs his fingers through the rune charms, disappointed that they're plastic and not wood or bone, and there are packs of tarot cards, necklaces with various Celtic symbols on them, rings of the same kind, and boxes full of crystals.

The woman returns with a black, velvet pouch, pouring its contents onto the counter. There's a little plastic bag full of white powder and a red crystal orb, about the size of a marshmallow. "Get the powder on your target's skin, then activate the crystal when you're ready to go using the phrase 'Arcama dendalae' and follow it."

"What do you want for it?" Stiles asks. The Illysium Order typically doesn't trade in money, preferring to exchange goods or services.

The woman rubs at her chin. "How about an IOU? I can tell that you're gifted."

"An IOU? Sure." Stiles gives her his phone number. "Just don't ask me to kill anyone."

"Deal," the woman says. She shakes his hand and passes him the pouch. "Happy hunting."

"Thanks. By the way, can you tell me anything about Chloe Smith or what might've killed her?" Stiles lied to Superdouche – he didn't stalk Chloe on Facebook, and he doesn't know if she was into the Wiccan scene, but the store is right across from her parent's house, and members of the Illysium Order always have an ear to the ground.

"One of the people who had her throat torn out, right?"

Stiles nods.

"I heard there's a new pack in town," the woman tells him, and Stiles' stomach drops. "And not the nice kind."

"Do you know anything about the Alpha?" Stiles asks.

She shakes her head. "No – just that whoever they are, they're a real nasty piece of work."

"Thanks," Stiles says. "If you hear anything else, let me know."

He heads for the door, rolling the black bag around in his fingers. He reaches the yellow bug before Superdouche, and as he waits, he takes the plastic pouch from the velvet one and dips his fingers into the white powder. Superdouche leaves the victim's house, shaking hands with a tired looking man. Superdouche spots Stiles and hurries over. "Looks like you've got something on your neck," Stiles says once Superdouche is in range. "I think it's a bug." He reaches up and wipes the imaginary insect away, smearing the white powder across Superdouche's neck.

"Thanks," Superdouche says. "The parents didn't know anything. Did your lead turn up any info?"

Stiles thinks about what all he wants to tell Superdouche. "The store owner said she'd noticed a man lurking around Chloe the past week, though she never got a good look at him."

Superdouche nods. "It's a start."

Stiles opens his car door, but before he can climb inside, a crash and a series of screams echoes from a few streets over. Stiles immediately slams the door shut again, his heart and mind leaping into ready mode. "Stay here," Superdouche orders.

"Like hell." Stiles races after him, skidding around two corners until they break out into a small corner park where a dozen flame sprites and three golems are rampaging around. The flame sprites toss balls of fire in every direction, scattering the humans, and the golems swing their heavy fists and smash holes in the ground. Kara is already there, using her freeze breath against the flame sprites.

"Stay back, Stiles!" Superdouche yells.

"You stay back!" Stiles replies because that's what he would say if he didn't know Superdouche was really Superman.

A flame sprite either hears or spots them because it rears back and launches a fireball at them. Superdouche and Stiles leap in opposite directions to avoid it, and Stiles hits the road on his shoulder and rolls, popping up into a crouch. Superdouche is gone when he looks around through he spots Superman whizzing through the air a second later, resplendent in blue and red.

"Help!" Stiles sees a golem stalking towards two men cowering by the fountain. Stiles races forward, drawing his knife, and he drops to his knees and slides between the golem's legs, driving his dagger into its calf and using his momentum to rip it through the stone. The golem bellows as its leg trembles but doesn't collapse.

Stiles leaps to his feet just before the fountain, jumps onto the ledge, and springs off in the opposite direction. He slams his dagger into the golem's chest and uses it to hold himself there as he shoves his hand into its mouth, seizing the roll of paper inside. Then he drops back to the ground, and as soon as the paper leaves the creature's mouth, it falls inert.

Stiles lands lightly. He ignores the men as they rush to thank him, instead unrolling the paper to look at the symbols written inside. One of the sigils – which Stiles memorizes – marks the wizard that created the golem, and Stiles adds a few lines to it to make it his own, then he scales the golem to stick the paper back in its mouth.

The orange glow rekindles in the creature's eyes, and it straightens, bulky shoulders rolling back.

"The other golems," Stiles orders, pointing towards the nearest rock monster. "Take them out."

His golem trundles away on its thick, stone legs, and Stiles turns his attention towards a flame sprite flying towards him. He dodges the oncoming fireball and dives into the fountain. The flames sizzle as they hit the water beside him, and suddenly, the temperature rockets up, steam erupting.

"You! Give me your jacket!" Stiles bellows at one of the men he just saved.

The man gives him a deer in the headlights look but strips off his windbreaker and tosses it to Stiles.

Stiles folds the jacket into a pouch and dips it into the water, lifting and flinging it at the flame sprite as hard as he can. The flame sprite sizzles and shrieks as the water strikes it, and most of the flames wreathing its body go out. Stiles seizes its blackened leg and drags it down into the water, driving it in deep and holding it down as it struggles, plunging his knife into its heart. Orange blood floods out of it, hot and thick, scalding his fingers.

Breathing heavily, Stiles splashes out of the fountain, every bit of him dripping. He looks around, taking stock. His golem has taken care of one of the other ones, just in time to get smashed by Superdouche – rude – who then moves on directly to the third golem as Supergirl freezes out the last of the flame sprites.

Stiles cleans his knife and puts it away then hurries back to the spot where he left Superdouche behind. "Clark?" he yells. "Clark, where are you?"

Superdouche appears out of the smoke, dressed in his street clothes, not a hair out of place. How the hell does he do it? "Stiles? Are you okay? Why are you all wet?"

"I had to dive into the fountain to avoid one of those fire things." Stiles breathes heavily, brings nerves and fear into his voice. "What the hell were they?"

"I have no idea." Stiles wonders if that's the truth. "Your hand! What happened?" Superdouche reaches for Stiles' injured hand, the one without the cast, turning it over to take a look at it.

Stiles pulls his arms away. "One of those crazy fireballs brushed me. It's fine. Just a light burn."

By now, the emergency services have arrived, and Supergirl talks to the police as the firefighters start dealing with the wreckage the flame sprites left behind.

"Let me take you to the hospital or at least to one of the ambulances," Superdouche says.

Stiles shakes his head. "I'm fine. There are people hurt worse than me. I've got stuff to deal with it at home."

The two men he saved point him out to the police, but Superdouche doesn't notice as he nods and slings his arm around Stiles' shoulders to lead him back to the car. Stiles shrugs him off immediately.

"You're sure you'll be okay?" Superdouche asks. They're parked outside Stiles' apartment building.

Stiles nods. "I'll be fine."

"I want to head back and see if I can do anything to help, then I have some things to do afterwards. You take care of yourself. I'll call and check in later."

Stiles watches as he drives away then hurries up to his apartment, slapping some cursory aloe vera on his burnt fingers and waving his hairdryer over his soaked cast. After that, it's back to his investigation board. He recreates the symbols from the golem's mouth, prints out pictures of the two creatures, and writes a few facts under their names.

Golems

\- Jewish Folklore

\- mud/earth/stone

\- controlled by a wizard (The wizard gets a black silhouette and lots of question marks).

\- brought to life by powerful magic.

Flame Sprites

\- European

\- fire/flames

\- sometimes related to fairies, elves, spirits

\- druid involvement in summoning?

There is a lot of red on his board. Could this attack be related to the new pack in town – the unknown Alpha of which is another black silhouette?

Stiles is still buzzing from the fight – his nerves are on fire, and he's grinning, actually, properly grinning for the first time in a long time. He's got so much energy, enough to go to the fucking moon.

Stiles gets ready for the next mission. He puts a black hoodie on under Derek's jacket and exchanges his boots for a lighter, quieter pair of dark sneakers, putting his knife in an inside pocket. The velvet pouch goes into another pocket along with a few other doo-dads he feels he might need.

When he leaves his apartment, the day is turning towards night. Hidden in the shadows of an alley, he pulls the red crystal from his pocket and holds it in his palm. "Arcama dendalae," he says to it.

The orb begins to glow, lifts off his hand, and zips off to the east at a startling speed. Stiles manages to catch it at the last second, and it yanks his arm forward, forcing him to run after it as it drags him around corners and even tries to cut through an open window. Stiles barely skirts around the building before he crashes into the wall. Stiles chases his arm for a half hour, legs churning, breath rasping in and out of his chest. They weave through the streets, earning odd looks from everyone they pass, and Stiles even grabs the attention of a police officer who takes a few steps after him before realizing he's moving far too fast to be bothered with.

The chase ends when the two of them reach an innocuous looking skyscraper, its windows immaculately cleaned and a balcony three-fourths of the way up, and the crystal tries to pull him into the air. "Arcama dendalae," he says, hoping that will quiet the orb as well as wake it up, and luckily, it does, the crystal falling still in his hand and the glow dying. He puts it back in his pocket so he can study the building.

He stands in the shadows of an alley about twenty feet away from what looks like a back door to the skyscraper. He sees a little black card reader beside the handle. He takes an amulet from his pocket and slips it over his neck to distort his image from any cameras and then pulls a slim leather cardholder out as he walks towards the door, hood flipped up over his head.

He flashes the blank piece of paper against the reader, and after a long moment, the little light turns green, and the door opens. Yes, Stiles has psychic paper, and yes, he has already heard every single Doctor Who joke about it, mostly from Kira and Scott.

He steps into a long, grey hallway. It's bare and silent but for the hum of an air conditioner in the ceiling, and Stiles walks past a couple of closed doors. He can feel a…a tingling presence at the edges of his mind. He doesn't know what it is, but it grows stronger the deeper he heads into the building.

He comes to a staircase and starts up it, and as he does, he realizes just how ill conceived and terrible his plan is. He doesn't actually have a fucking plan. He just walked right into a secret government facility with a blank piece of paper and not much else, and now he's somehow going to hack into their computer system? Stiles doesn't know how to hack! Derek would kick his ass if he were around to see this shit.

Stiles freezes in the stairwell, three steps from the top. He just…thought about Derek in the past tense. His knees buckle. He sits down heavily. He doesn't want to be thinking about Derek in the past tense because then that would mean he's accepted Derek's death. He doesn't want to accept Derek's death. Can't accept it.

He also can't be doing this right now. He can't be breaking down in the middle of a mission. So Stiles gets himself up, locks away the part of his brain that holds all his dark thoughts, and walks through the door.

He's deposited on a floor full of labs separated from each other by glass walls. Sleek, gleaming tech covers the tables and counters, all things Stiles is certain he would break if he even stepped into the room. He spots a lab coat hanging from a peg by one of the doors, so he grabs it and throws it on over Derek's jacket. It's a bit tight across the shoulders.

As Stiles walks down the hall, he sees glass domes and tubes containing biological samples that clearly aren't human. Some are scaly, others covered in brightly colored fur. There are talons and teeth, and Stiles even sees a few werewolf claws. He pauses to stare at those. Do these people actually know what they are?

He uses his psychic paper to open the door and steps inside, tugging his hoodie further down his forehead. In two quick moves, he lifts the lid on the case with the werewolf claws and scoops them up and into his pocket. When he turns around, a lab tech is standing in the door, staring at him. Her hair is braided into a crown around her head, her green eyes reminding him of Lydia.

"Hey," he says, grinning.

"Who are you? Do you work here?" she asks, brow furrowed and suspicious.

"Yeah, yeah, I do!" Stiles says with a laugh. "I'm new. My name's Scott."

The girl takes a step towards him. "Can I see your badge?"

"Oh, yeah, sure. Of course. One sec. Where the hell did I put it?" Stiles pats his pockets frowning. "Ah, there it is." He frees the psychic paper and flips it open.

The lab tech reaches out to take it from him, bringing it close so that she can examine it. Satisfied, she passes it back to him. "I didn't think the DEA was hiring."

"I'm a special case. Got that big brain." Stiles grins and taps his temple. "I'm afraid I'm a bit turned around. This building is like a fucking labyrinth." He sheepishly rubs at the back of his neck. "Do you think you could point me in the direction of the main office?"

Now that the lab tech believes Stiles belongs, she's all smiles and helpful cheer. "Sure. You're not far. Just head down this hallway, take a left, then two rights."

"Thanks a lot. You probably just saved my life." Stiles turns his grin up a notch. "We should get drinks sometime." He doesn't know why he says this. He doesn't actually want to get drinks with her. It just seems like something a normal person would say to a pretty girl.

The lab tech turns bright red and looks away from him, tugging at one of the strands of hair escaping from her crown. "I'd like that."

"Why don't you give me your number, and I'll text you." Stiles takes a pen from his lab coat pocket and pulls the cap off with his teeth. He holds the pen out to her and lets her write her name and number across the back of his hand. "Alright, Kate. We'll talk later." He gives her one last wink and then moves past her and out the door.

He has probably just created a huge problem for himself, but he'll deal with that later.

Stiles follows the directions Kate gave him, his lab coat making him invisible to the few people he passes by, other men and women in lab coats or dressed all in black. Many of them carry tablets that they type rapidly on as they walk, and all the ones in black have guns on their hips.

Stiles stops before he turns the final corner, lounging behind a potted plant. He can hear people moving about and talking, picking out Kara's, Alex's, Superdouche's, and even Winn's voices, plus a deeper one resonating with command. That presence around the edge of his mind throbs.

"So no one knows what those things were today?" Superdouche asks with a frustrated sigh.

"They aren't in any of our databases," Winn says.

So the DEA knows about aliens but not about the supernatural world. Interesting.

"Stop talking," the deep voice orders. "There's something here."

"What do you mean?" Kara asks.

"I don't know exactly. I can feel some kind of psychic presence, but I can't pinpoint it."

Oh shit, that's him.

Stiles has read a lot about psychics since the Nogitsune left him changed, mostly about the techniques for blocking out other thoughts rather than learning to hone or expand his own sickening powers. He visualizes his mind as a black block and begins to build a wall around it, laying the bricks, slapping down the mortar, and repeating the process again and again until the whole thing is encased.

"Huh, it's gone," the man says.

Stiles breathes a sigh of relief.

"What was it?"

"I don't know. It was cold. It was dark."

Stiles' stomach churns.

"The samples are ready in the lab," Alex says. "Shall we go see what they tell us?"

Stiles realizes with a start that the group is about to come towards him, and he turns so that his back will be to them, pulling out his phone to pretend to look busy. The whole group passes within two feet of him, and Stiles tilts his head to the side. Their leader, a stocky, African American man who exudes a sense of danger, looks right at him, and Stiles feels a gentle push at his brick wall, but he doesn't move a mental muscle, not wanting the man to know that he can feel the probe.

The group passes him by without a second glance, and Stiles slips into the room behind them. Computer and television screens cover half the space, mounted on the curving wall and stacked on long lines of desks. Satellite images flicker across the screens along with security camera feeds and spools of data. The agents in here are all dressed in black, most of them sitting at computers and typing away furiously.

Stiles picks one of the empty monitors and sits down, flashing his psychic paper at the card reader to log himself in. Not a single person in the room questions his presence. Stiles knows a lot about normal-people computers – he's quite adept at sifting through all the bullshit on the Internet to find the real answers, but he doesn't know a thing about these government grade databases. He starts opening files and documents until he comes across one labelled 'Alien Species Registry.'

"What are you doing?" The question makes Stiles jump violently and spin around in his chair. A severe looking agent stands behind him, arms folded, and Stiles is very aware of the gun on the man's hip.

"Shit, man, you scared the hell out of me! Give a person some warning before you sneak up on them." Stiles presses a hand to his chest.

"What are you doing?" the man repeats. "That file is restricted."

"Agent Danvers asked me to do some more digging into those creatures that attacked today." Stiles flashes his false badge. Despite himself, Stiles nudges out with his powers. Instantly, that other presence perks up and quests after him, but Stiles withdraws behind his wall.

The agent blinks, fuzziness wafting across his face. "Okay. If Danvers said it was alright…" He blinks a second time, shakes his head, and walks off, leaving Stiles to his business.

Stiles turns back to his file. There are several thousand entries, at least. Stiles blinks at the list a couple of times before he finds a filter bar. He types in lizard-like and mind control. The results jump down to thirty.

Stiles doesn't know how much time he has before Kara and the others come back., but luckily, most of the entries come with pictures or composite sketches, and Stiles focuses on those, though his curiosity tells him to read everything. In the eighth entry, he finds what he's looking for. Derek's killer stares back at him from the computer screen. Stiles' fists clench, his breath catches, and darkness blots out most of his vision. He hacks out a rasping cough, forcing himself to focus on the task at hand rather than getting dragged back into a past that wants to drown him.

 **Essyolyte**

Essyolytes originate from the planet Essen, in the outer reaches of the Universe. They have no known political associations or alliances with other species and races, preferring to keep to themselves. Essyolytes are lizard-like creatures, covered in tough scales and unable to regulate their own body temperature.

Essyolytes have mind control abilities, able to plunge their prey into nightmarish visions of their own design. Essyolytes make perfect bodyguards or assassins because once bonded to a master, they are loyal unto death. Essyolytes are only seen around the wider Universe if they are under the control of another.

If Stiles weren't already sitting, he would fall over. Darkness blots everything out. All he hears is a whooshing sound in his ears. He doesn't know where he is in space any more.

The attack wasn't random.

Someone was controlling the Essyolyte.

Someone sent it there to kill Derek.

* * *

When Stiles comes to, he's throwing up in a bathroom. He doesn't know what bathroom. He doesn't know how he got there. He's hunched over a toilet, puking his guts out, his whole body trembling, head pounding. He throws up again, but there's nothing left to come up.

The itch roars up inside of him, howling, demanding, ordering. The knife leaves his pocket and settles into his hand, the dark blade gleaming up at him, and he rips the sleeve of his lab coat up, then Derek's jacket, then his hoodie, finds a clear patch of skin, digs the point of the blade in deep.

There is no pattern to the cuts this time. They are different sizes, different depths. Blood drips down his arm and splatters on the white tile floor. He grinds the knife in deeper than ever, his teeth gritted against the pain. He lets the hurt fill him, drown the idea that someone ordered Derek's death.

He's going to kill them. He's going to kill them all.

This time, the itch doesn't die down, and he has to pry his fingers from the knife hilt, letting it clatter to the floor. His hands shake. Blood continues to drip from his arm. He slaps some toilet paper over the cuts to soak it up and yanks all three of his sleeves back down then uses more paper to mop his blood up off the floor, tossing the remains in the toilet. He puts the knife back in his pocket, touching it as briefly as possible.

He stands on weak legs, braced against the stall wall. He takes one deep breath, two, three. Scrubs the tears from his face. Stiles leaves the stall and washes up at the sink, swishing water around in his mouth to clear out the taste of bile. He fits his broken pieces of composure back in place before he leaves the bathroom, finding that he's still inside the DEA building.

Stiles keeps his head down as he hurries through the halls, winding his way down to the back door he came in through. He gets outside without mishap; if he were in any other state of mind he would marvel at how easy it was for him to just walk into the DEA. Instead, he stumbles all the way back to his apartment, losing most of the time it takes to get there and lock himself inside.

His fingers shake as he stuffs weed into his glass bowl and lights it up, breathing in as deeply as he can. It takes a refill to get the trembling to finally stop. The itch clamors at him, but he yanks the knife from his pocket and flings it across the room so that it sticks, point first, into the wood of the windowsill. After that, he buries himself under the covers of his bed.

Sleep doesn't come for him, no matter how much he begs it to. All he can see is the shadowy outline of the person who controls the Essyolyte. He has a knife in his hand, and he drives it into the figure again and again and again, screaming the whole time, and when he's done, there's dark laughter in his head and the knowledge that Derek will still be dead.

He pulls his crumpled self out of bed at one PM the next day; he knows he can't ditch out on this therapy session. He doesn't want to go, though. His entire being feels fragile, like one single tap could shatter the whole thing. He wonders what would be underneath. A bandage wrapped hand. Sharp teeth. The buzzing of flies.

A text waits for him, his phone on the brink of falling off the bedside table.

 _Clark Kent 10:41am: Shall we interview the other families today?_

 _Me 1:05pm: cant today_

Even typing those two, short words is almost too much for him

In the bathroom, he strips his clothes off. Lab coat. Derek's jacket. Hoodie. The bloody toilet paper flutters to the ground. More dried blood is caked across his arm. He stumbles into the shower and lets the scalding water pound at his skin, strip away the dirt and sweat of the fight, drown out the throbbing in his head. He lifts his wrist and looks at it.

What would it look like if he scraped all the skin away?

He scratches at the delicate flesh on the inside of his wrist, gently at first, then harder and harsher. The skin grows red, becomes raised, and finally splits, bright red blood oozing from the cut only to be torn away by the water, diluted, drowned. He wants to drown the whole world in red and then himself.

He scrapes harder, and the red runs more deeply. It pools at his feet too quickly for the drain to carry it away. He will dig all the way down to the bone and expose the rot that lies at the core of him.

A knock at the door, barely heard over the sound of the water, stops his nail. He's left blinking at his arm and its red dye as the knocking comes again.

Does he actually need to answer it?

"Stiles?" Superdouche calls.

Shit. Yes, he does need to answer it.

Stiles turns the water off. "One second!" he calls.

He steps out of the shower and wraps a towel around his waist. He's got no quick way to cover up his bleeding wrist or the multitude of cuts, old and new, along his arms. He scoops the dirty hoodie off the floor and throws it on, hoping that will do.

Stiles pulls the door open part way. Superdouche stands outside, peering in with a concerned look on his face. "Didn't you get my text?" Stiles asks shortly.

"I did, but I was at Kara's and I thought I'd drop by and check if everything was okay." Superdouche smiles at him, but that just makes Stiles want to punch him in the face.

"Everything's fine. I just can't come with you today." Stiles arm hurts. Badly. He feels blood dripping down his hand.

"Why not?" Superdouche's tone isn't accusatory. It's worried, concerned.

Stiles is not about to tell him he has to go to therapy. "I have a prior engagement."

"Okay." Superdouche glances down at the ground and shifts his grip on the strap of his bag. "How's your hand?"

For a moment, Stiles thinks Superdouche is talking about his cut wrist, but then he remembers the burns on his other hand. They'd been mild, and he'd forgotten about them in all the chaos yesterday. "It's fine. Listen, I was just in the shower, and I need to finish getting ready."

"Right, of course." Superdouche smiles. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Stiles nods and shuts the door in the man's face.

True to his word, Stiles finishes getting ready. He wraps gauze around his wrist and then a handkerchief to pretend that it's fashion, then shaves, gets dressed in a red and black flannel, and gels his hair. Fuck, he does not want to do this. Nerves boil in his stomach, threatening to overflow and send him fleeing back to his bed. But instead, he forces himself out the door, taking the bus because he doesn't want to ask Alex for a ride and have to explain where he's going. He keeps his earbuds in and his gaze directed at his shoes the whole time.

The therapist's office is in a small, red brick building. Everything about it is unassuming. The sign declaring it as 'The Office of Dr. Olivia Connors" is small and barely noticeable beside the mailbox, and Stiles walks by the building three times, staring at his GPS, before he realizes what it is.

Then he has to stop and stare at the door for five minutes, rooted in place on the sidewalk.

No. No way. Stiles is not doing this. He's not going in there. Detective Sawyer can bring back the drug charges and toss him in jail or whatever. (He forgets the part where if he's in jail, he can't hunt down the Essyolyte).

But before he can turn around and walk (run) away, the door opens and a woman in a blue blazer and a Thor t-shirt steps out onto the small front porch. She looks at him with her arms folded. "I take it you're Stiles Stilinski."

"Maybe," he says.

"Come on. Get in here." She steps back through the door, an obvious sign for him to follow.

Stiles sighs and looks over his shoulder at the bus stop which is tantalizingly close. But Dr. Connors has already seen him. There's no backing out now. So he sucks it up and walks through the door.

Dr. Connors' office looks just like a living room – leather couch across from a rolling chair and desk, bookshelves behind it, and a patterned rug underneath. Landscapes done in soft colors hang from the walls, and a window looks out on a jumbled garden.

"Please, take a seat," Dr. Connors says, gesturing towards the couch.

Stiles looks at it, looks at her, then walks around the couch to look at the bookshelves. Most of the volumes there have something to do with psychology. He puts his back to the therapist.

"Alright then. How are you today, Stiles?"

"How long have you been a therapist?"

"Five years. I got my Masters from Harvard. You don't like to answer questions about yourself, do you?"

Stiles pulls a book from the shelf at random and opens it up. "I like talking about myself quite a lot, actually. Usually, people can't get me to shut up."

"So why don't you talk to me?"

"Don't much feel like talking today." Stiles shrugs, puts the book back.

"You don't have to talk if you don't want to. You can just look at those books for the next hour. That's perfectly fine."

Stiles finally glances over his shoulder at her. She sits in the rolling chair with a notepad on her knee. "Doesn't that defeat the purpose of therapy?"

"Therapy is whatever you need it to be."

Whatever Stiles needs it to be. He needs a way to keep doing drugs yet still pass these monthly tests, he needs to find whoever is controlling the Essyolyte, and he needs to figure out the deal with this new Pack. He doesn't need to spend an hour a week talking about his feelings. The things in his head are no business of this therapist.

God, he's going to hate himself for this.

"Do you want to talk about how you ended up in the hospital?" Dr. Connors asks.

"Not particularly," Stiles says.

"How about why you moved to National City?"

Stiles takes another book out and turns to face her fully, flipping to a page in the middle, staring down at it as he talks. "What do you know already?"

"It doesn't matter what I already know. I want to hear it from you." She watches him with sharp eyes, head tilted to the side. Stiles observes her on the sly, tilting his eyes up to look at her while keeping his head pointed down towards the book.

"Because I'm obviously a reliable source."

Dr. Connors shrugs. "The way you tell me things tells me as much about you as the things you actually say."

"Like?"

"Well, I can tell you're highly intelligent, very defensive, and I probably can't trust half the things that come out of your mouth."

"Try three-fourths," Stiles says with a smirk.

Dr. Connors laughs. The sound seems to surprise her.

"My boyfriend died. I guess you could say I'm not dealing with it well."

"How long were you together?"

Stiles snaps the book shut. "I don't want to talk about him right now."

"What do you want to talk about?"

"Weed. It's legal here, right?" He senses her suspicion, so he nudges out just slightly, calming her.

"It is."

"What's it usually prescribed for?" Stiles already knows the answer to this question, but he needs the idea to come from her with only a little nudging on his part.

"Pain, nausea, chronic headaches."

"Chronic headaches, really?" Stiles says. "I didn't know that was a thing. How frequently do you have to get headaches for them to be chronic? Because I seem to get at least one a day."

"That would be considered chronic," Dr. Connors tells him. "Are they bad?"

"Some days are worse than others."

Dr. Connors reaches for her Rx pad. "I could write you a prescription for it."

Stiles pretends to let his face fall in disappointment while nudging at her mind again. "What about my drug tests?"

"I'll talk to Detective Sawyer. I'm sure if I explain the situation to her, she'll drop that requirement." Dr. Connors scrawls the prescription, rips the top page off the pad, and holds it out to him.

Stiles takes two quick steps across the floor to accept it before she comes to her senses.

"I'll see you this time next week?"

"I guess," Stiles sighs. "If I must."

Dr. Connors closes her notepad and stands to walk him to the door. She holds out her hand to him, smiling. "It was nice to meet you."

Stiles shakes it. "I'm afraid I can't say the same."

She tips back her head and laughs a little. "Bye, Stiles."

Stiles nods to her and leaves. Once he's turned the corner and is no longer in sight of the office building, he stops and throws up in a bush.

Stiles stands outside his front door, key in hand, staring at the lock. He can hear people arguing in Kara's apartment. Something slams, like a fist against a table. "How the hell does someone just walk right in and out of the DEA without any of us knowing it?" It's the voice of the stocky, black man. The one in charge.

"I don't know," Alex says. "All our cameras picked up was a blurry shape in a lab coat."

Stiles smirks. Good to know his amulet actually works.

"We've got the most sophisticated security system in the world," Kara points out. "What on earth could be powerful enough to hide itself from that?"

"Whatever it is, it's here now."

A questing hand slams into Stiles' mind, seeking to force its way to the core of him and figure out who he is, but Stiles' thoughts are slippery, like eels. He slides around the probe so that it can't catch onto anything firm, already throwing up barriers of pointless thoughts to push it out again.

 _I want a hippopotamus for Christmas,_

 _Only a hippopotamus will do._

 _I don't want any dolls, or rinky dinky toys._

 _I want a hippopotamus to play with and enjoy._

His attacker splits into three parts to try and trip him up, but Stiles is adaptable. He takes the darkness the Nogitsune left inside of him and flings it out like tentacles to suffocate and drive the others back.

 _I want a hippopotamus for Christmas,_

 _Only a hippopotamus will do._

 _I don't want any dolls, or rinky dinky toys._

 _I want a hippopotamus to play with and enjoy._

 **You want to know who I am?** he asks the man.

He's an eight-headed hydra, now. He is ever growing, bricking up his mind even while battering the other man away with his darkness and his inane song. ( _I WANT A HIPPOPOTAMUS FOR CHRISTMAS)_. He revels in his power. _(ONLY A HIPPOPOTAMUS WILL DO)_. The other man's mind is endless – several millennia old – yet here is Stiles and his many-headed Hydra, winning. _(I DON'T WANT ANY DOLLS OR RINKY DINKY TOYS)_. This is how the Nogitsune felt all day, every day, in complete control even as the chaos he created raged around him. _(I WANT A HIPPOPOTAMUS TO PLAY WITH AND ENJOY)._

With a gasp, Stiles slams the last brick in place and rips himself away from that laughing, roiling darkness. His whole body trembles. He wouldn't be able to fit the key in the lock even if he wanted to. What – what has he done?

From inside Kara's apartment comes a loud thud and a clatter. "J'onn?" Alex's voice, full of concern. "J'onn, are you okay?"

"It's nearby," the man gasps. "In the building. I almost had it."

It. That's fitting, Stiles thinks.

Kara's door opens, and she steps out into the hall, Alex close behind her, very obviously hiding a gun by her leg. Stiles stuffs his key in the lock the instant he hears the other door begin to open and looks up in surprise. "Hey, guys," he says.

"Stiles, hey," Kara says as Alex glances up and down the hallway. "Have you seen anyone else around?"

"No," Stiles says with a shrug. "But I only got off the elevator a moment ago. Why? What's going on?"

Kara shakes her head. "Nothing. Just thought we heard something."

"Might've been me. I dropped my keys."

The old, old man – by now, Stiles is sure he's not human, not supernatural, but some kind of alien – joins the Danvers sisters in the corridor. His sharp eyes sweep over Stiles, sizing him up, and that questing finger reaches out to him, seeking a reaction, but Stiles ignores it. Alex gestures at Jean. "Stiles, this is my boss, Hank Henshaw," she says.

J'onn – or Hank – inclines his head.

"I should go," Stiles continues, drawing his key from the lock and opening the door. "Chores to do and what not."

Kara hurries after him, slipping into his apartment before he can close the door. She places a hand on his arm, so close to the fresh cuts that he feels them burn. "Hey, is everything alright? Clark said you seemed out of sorts when he saw you this morning?"

Stiles shrugs, moving to put his keys on the counter so that her hand has to fall away. How easy it would be to tell her everything. How easy and yet how hard. "He just caught me on an off day," is all he says.

As much as he likes Kara, she is not Pack.

And Stiles…Stiles has no Pack. Not anymore.


	9. what did you say?

_A/N - The eternal dilemma between 'that's a really good last line' and 'but I love ridiculously long chapters!'_

* * *

 **ix. what did you say?**

At noon the next day, there's a pounding at Stiles' door, and he pokes his head out from beneath his nest of blankets, blinking blearily. He smacks his dry mouth a couple of times. He's still a bit high from the weed he smoked the night before after Kara left, so he can't quite figure out what that sound is.

The knocking comes again, and he tumbles out of bed and inches across the floor of his bedroom like a giant, blue caterpillar, rolling through the door and across his living room to the front door.

Superdouche stands out in the hall.

Stiles almost slams the door shut again.

"What?" he says grumpily, squinting in the light.

"Were you asleep?" Superdouche asks, and Stiles gives him a baleful look. "Can I come in?" Superdouche pushes past Stiles into the apartment, clapping Stiles on his squishy, cocooned shoulder. "Ms. Grant wants the article by Friday, so I thought we could work on the first draft today." He drops his leather bag onto the coffee table (bought by Lydia) and flops down onto the couch (also bought by Lydia). He pauses while pulling his laptop from his bag. "Is that a knife in your wall?"

Stiles looks over at Allison's knife which is still stuck in the plaster. "It's…decoration?"

"Is it real?"

"Of course it's not real. Do I look like the kind of person who would own a knife?" Stiles shuffles over to the open end of the couch and plops down with a whumph.

"It looks sharp."

"It's a decoration."

"Where's your laptop? I'll share the document with you." Superdouche finally finishes pulling his own device from his bag, a sleek, silver MacBook.

"In my room," Stiles sighs, slumping further down in his blankets.

"Want me to go get it?" Superdouche says because he's one of those overly helpful people.

Stiles almost says yes because he doesn't want to move, but then he remembers his uncovered investigation board. "No, I've got it." He slithers off the couch and over to his room when he climbs to his knees, turns the boards to face the wall, and grabs his laptop, tucking it into his cocoon so he can crawl back to the living room. Superdouche watches him, blinking slowly.

"What?" Stiles says.

Superdouche shakes his head and laughs. "I've just never seen anyone caterpillar across a room like that."

Stiles glares at him because that laugh sounds just like the one Derek only breaks out when he and Stiles are alone. Open. Head tipped back. Teeth flashing. Stiles' glare falters.

Broke out.

Were alone.

He squirms further down into his blanket as he pulls out his laptop, scooting it out to rest on his knees, his arms emulating a T-rex as he types in his password.

"What kind of writing experience do you have?" Superdouche asks.

"Uh, college essays?"

The two of them get to work, Superdouche sharing his research and article files with Stiles. Superdouche has three theories – animal attacks, budding serial killer, and gang violence. All boring theories, in Stiles' opinion, though he can't very well put forth the werewolf attacks idea.

Stiles pauses and sits up a little higher, tapping a pen against his teeth. Established werewolf packs don't leave their kills around for humans to find. They're too smart for that. So unless there's an Omega in town – which Stiles doubts is the case as a newly territorial Pack would be fierce in driving all other wolves from their territory – the Pack is up to something.

Stiles shucks the blanket off and rolls off the back of his couch, rifling around in a drawer until he finds a map of the city. He leaps back over the couch and falls to his knees by the coffee table. "Read me the addresses where the murders took place."

"What are you thinking?" Superdouche asks, leaning forward.

"Just read them to me."

Superdouche lists off the addresses, and Stiles marks them on the map with a Sharpie and then connects the dots using a ruler. He's left staring at a perfectly equilateral triangle.

"What is it?"

Stiles doesn't answer right away. He snatches up his laptop and opens the PDF spell book he scanned and downloaded over a long summer three years ago after stealing it from a black witch. His fingers fly across the keyboard until he finds what he's looking for. "It's a ritual," he says.

"A what?"

"Specifically, a power ritual." Stiles' eyes fly across the page. "The three murders form the boundaries of the spell and charge it."

"You're talking about magic."

"Whatever is in the center of the boundary receives the benefit of the spell." Stiles rubs at his chin. "I don't think the second part of the spell has been enacted yet. I think we'd know – there'd be a surge or something."

"A magic ritual? To do what?"

"To imbibe whoever enacts it with power. Incredible power."

"I don't know, Stiles. A magic ritual? It's a lot to swallow."

"I know what I'm talking about, Derek."

Stiles looks up. Superdouche sits on the couch and stares at him, blinking behind his glasses, cheeks smooth rather than stubbled, his hair neatly combed rather than spiked up at the front, dressed in light colors rather than dark.

"Who's Derek?" Superdouche asks.

"It's time for you to go," Stiles says abruptly.

Superdouche sets his laptop aside, leans forward with his elbows on his knees. "Why? What's wrong?"

"It's time for you to go," Stiles repeats.

"Okay. I'm sorry. We can pick this up another day." Superdouche starts packing up his things. Stiles knows that he should be the one apologizing and that none of this is actually Superdouche's fault, but he doesn't say anything. Just watches Superdouche sling his bag over his shoulder and open the door, glancing over his shoulder at Stiles for a moment before disappearing.

 _"I don't know, Stiles. It seems way too far fetched," Scott said, tapping his fingers against the margins of the centuries old book that Stiles was reading from. The rest of the Pack sat around the table, staring at Stiles with varying levels of dubiousness._

 _"I'm telling you, I've done my research," Stiles insisted. "This is it. In fact, this is the only thing it_ could _be."_

 _"I don't know…" Scott trailed off._

 _"If Stiles says that's what it is, then that's what it is," Derek said, pushing off the wall he'd been leaning against. "End of discussion."_

 _Stiles beamed at Derek, and Derek offered him one of his rare, soft, half-smiles before settling against the wall again and letting Stiles get back to it._

As much as he wants to wallow with several pints of ice cream, Stiles decides that he has things to do. He rides the subway to the stop nearest the Issylium Order store and steps inside, the bell tinkling overhead.

The shop keep looks up from her book and smiles. "Welcome back."

"I need stuff for another spell."

"How did the first one work out for you?"

"Great, thanks."

Stiles picks up a copper bowl, mortar and pestle, five black candles, some white chalk, and a few bottles of various spices. "Another IOU?" he asks.

"Bring me some of Supergirl's hair, and we'll call it even," she says.

At least that won't be too hard.

Stiles carries the paper bag home and spreads everything out on the kitchen counter along with another map of the city. He gets the werewolf claw that he found near the dumpster and uses the mortar and pestle to grind it up into a fine dust which he then combines with his various herbs in the copper bowl. On the counter, he copies a pentagram from his spell book in chalk, various druidic symbols swirled through the empty spaces, the five candles set up at each of the five points. The map gets spread out in the center of the circle.

Stiles spreads the herb and werewolf claw mixture across the map as evenly as he can and lights the candles. Then he sets the map on fire.

The flames burn white and purple and blue as they flare across the paper, traveling from edge to edge, gobbling up all the dried herbs and leaving the map behind, unscathed except for one patch in the southern part of the city which it burns away.

Stiles lines this map up over the one he drew the triangle on, and then he has the general location of the Pack lair, a small patch of suburbia just outside the city center. The spell can't give him an exact location as people move around too much, but it can pick up on where people spend most of their time.

Stiles' phone rings, startling him so badly that he jerks and almost knocks over one of the candles and burns his entire apartment down. The display reads, 'Detective Sawyer.' "Shit." He picks up. "Hello?"

"How the hell did you convince Dr. Connors to give you a medical marijuana prescription?" the detective demands.

"Well, hello to you, too, Detective Sawyer," Stiles says.

"I don't need lip from you right now, Stiles," she says. "I need you to explain yourself."

"It was the good doctor's idea, actually," Stiles replies. "Weed is legal here, you know. It's often used to treat people with my…issues."

"Not when I sent you to get help with your drug problem!"

"I don't have a drug problem," Stiles says. He leans against the counter. "Better weed than something stronger, right?"

"Not funny, Stiles." The detective's voice is hard and cold.

"Look, I don't know what to tell you. You'll have to take it up with the therapist."

"Oh, believe me, I will."

And Detective Sawyer hangs up.

"Rude," Stiles says, tossing his phone to the counter. "Not even a goodbye."

He's not quite ready to go investigate the werewolf lair – preparations to make, mountain ash to buy, a knife to sharpen – but he does head back out to look at the place in the center of the triangle.

He misses his Jeep as he walks along the sidewalk, the sun hot on his neck. Why didn't he drive it to National City again? Oh, that's right. Because of all the times Derek rode in it and bled in it or slammed Stiles' head against the dash. What Stiles wouldn't give to have a dash shaped headache again if it meant that he could see Derek for five more seconds.

Tears prick at his eyes. He keeps his head down and his hands in his pockets. The itch is back again along with the impossible thought that maybe, just maybe, if he sacrifices enough blood, he can bring Derek back.

Stupid.

Stupid.

The center of the triangle is a fountain in the middle of an unassuming park. Something under his skin tingles as he approaches, and he shivers – the fountain sits over a ley line intersection. Just a crossing of two small lines, but a crossing nonetheless. If the wolf completes the ritual here and absorbs the power of the lines…Jesus Christ, they'll be unstoppable. Stiles guesses that the second half of the ritual has to be completed on the next full moon. That gives him fifteen days to stop it.

He thinks about calling the Pack. His hand doesn't move to his phone. He just returns to his apartment with a cat calendar he bought from a drugstore and hangs it from his tack board with a big red circle around the next full moon.

"We've got ourselves a case," he says to his black wolf plushy. "New werewolf pack. Power hungry ritual. Sounds like another classic Beacon Hills disaster. And to be honest," he picks up the stuffed animal and turns it over in his hands, "I'm a little bit exhilarated. I'm all jittery. It's almost like old Stiles is back. I even quipped at a police officer today. Just like old times, eh?"

There's a knock at the door, echoing throughout the apartment. Stiles places the wolf carefully on his pillow, turns his boards around, and hurries to answer it. Kara, Alex, and Superdouche beam at him from the hallway. Well, Kara and Superdouche beam. Alex probably doesn't know how to form that expression.

"Hey, we're going out. Want to come?" Kara asks.

Stiles glances at Superdouche, wondering if he can hang out with the man in a social capacity. Kara reaches out and whacks him on the shoulder. "Come on, don't be lame. Come out with us."

"Well, when you put it that way." Stiles laughs because he wants to try out the idea of pretending to be Old Stiles. Normal Stiles. "Give me one minute."

Stiles gathers up his maps and candles and moves them into his bedroom, tucked into a drawer, then he slings a blazer on and grabs his jacket and keys. Back in the living room, he pauses, looking at his knife where it's still stuck into the wall. He forces himself to leave it where it is. He doesn't need a weapon to hang out with his friends.

"Alright, I'm ready," he says, stepping through the door and locking it behind him. "Where are we going?"

"Local bar," Alex answers.

Superdouche steps up beside him as the group starts for the elevator. "Hey, man, about earlier…"

Stiles raises a hand, cutting him off. "I'm going to stop you right there. I'm not talking about it."

"Okay. Sorry." Superdouche backs off.

"That's why you guys are here, isn't it?" Stiles says, glaring suspiciously at Kara's back. "You guys are worried about me or whatever."

Kara turns her head to beam at him. "Yup."

"Having friends is the worst," he sighs, mostly joking.

They wind up at a place called Patrick's Bar, an American attempt at an Irish pub. The tables are all made of a dark wood, highly polished, like the bar, and booths of black leather line the perimeter of the room. Most of the light comes from the dripping candles set into empty liquor bottles on every table and the fire crackling in the corner despite the fact that it's summer outside.

The four of them pick a square table on the opposite side of the room from the fire as most of the comfy booths are full. "I'll go get drinks," Superdouche says. "What does everyone want?"

"Red wine," Alex says.

"Gin and tonic. Thanks." Kara shrugs off her denim jacket.

Stiles pulls the candle closer to him and starts picking at the wax dribbled down the bottle. "Just a Coke."

"That's right, you don't drink," Alex says as Superdouche walks off with their order. "Why is that?"

"Bad college experience." Stiles leans forward and winks. "And besides, I prefer other means of intoxication." He lifts two fingers to his mouth and inhales.

"So Maggie says," Alex sighs.

Kara claps her hand down on Stiles' arm. "Do you mean pot? I've never tried pot before."

Stiles lifts a hand to his heart, mouth dropping open. "Never tried pot? Well, this simply cannot stand! We must rectify this problem ASAP."

"Please, no," Alex groans, dropping her head to the table. Kara just beams.

Superdouche returns with all the drinks clenched awkwardly in his hands, and he passes them around, sliding into the last chair around the table. "Is that a cosmopolitan?" Stiles asks, squinting at Superdouche's very red drink.

Superdouche turns a color to match the cocktail. "What? I like sweet drinks."

Stiles snorts into his own glass.

"What? Would you make fun of Kara or Alex for drinking one?"

Stiles sips at his Coke. "Yes, yes, I would."

"I would expect him to," Alex agrees.

"I think it's tasty," Kara says, stealing Superdouche's glass for a taste test.

Alex and Stiles sigh and shake their heads at each other. "Oh, you sweet, summer children."

"You're drinking a Coke!" Superdouche points out.

"Dude, Lydia and I once created a drink so strong it would literally make a normal person blind."

Alex laughs. "Knowing Lydia, I'd believe that."

"What was in it?" Kara asks in wonder.

"You don't want to know."

Here he is, joking about a thing that played a hand in Derek's death. A thing that he created. What the hell is wrong with him?

"Well, isn't this a twist of fate."

Ice slides down Stiles' spine at the sound of the new voice. A middle aged man of average height and average build stands across the table from him. Light brown hair falls across his forehead, a small smile on his face. Dark glasses cover his eyes. His hands wrap around the top of a slim, white cane.

"You." Stiles' voice cracks on the word. Why the _fuck_ did he leave his knife behind? God, he's so fucking stupid. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Deucalion takes a step forward. Stiles curls his hand around a napkin wrapped set of silverware. "Come now, that's no way to talk to an old friend, is it?" He pauses as he catches sight of Superdouche, flicking his gaze up and down the man's body. His smile stretches. "Well, now, this is interesting. I heard your boyfriend was killed." He looks Stiles right in the eyes as he says this.

Stiles flings himself over the table, scattering glasses, his friends shouting in surprise. He crashes into Deucalion, and the two of them tumble to the ground. The silverware clatters away, but Stiles doesn't care. He drives his fist into Deucalion's face. " _What did you do?_ " The other fist. " _What did you fucking do?_ "

A hand catches his wrist before he can punch Deucalion again, and then Kara lifts him up and away. Stiles flails. "Let me go! What did you fucking do?"

Kara sets him down, and she must not be using her full strength because Stiles tears himself free and launches himself at Deucalion again. "You fucking psycho! I'll kill you!" Before he can get another swing in, a different hand grabs his arm, bigger, rougher, claws digging into his blazer, and he's tossed back, stumbling into the table where Kara and Superdouche catch him and hold him. Ethan or Aidan leers at him.

"Tell me what you did!" Stiles roars at Deucalion as the Alpha slowly rises, taking Aidan or Ethan's arm for support. He wipes a smear of blood from his lip with his thumb, still smirking. He had a hand in Derek's death. Stiles can see it in that prideful grin, in the way he speaks. Stiles can fucking tell.

"TELL ME!" he roars, his power swelling inside of him, bursting free, uncontrollable.

All the lights flare and die in a series of bangs, plunging the room into semi-darkness. People scream, but a second later, the bulbs all wheeze back to life, almost blinding.

"What the hell was that?" Alex gasps. Her hand drops to her belt, but there's no gun there.

Aidan or Ethan helps Deucalion stand, and for a moment, the Alpha stares at Stiles in shock, and Stiles is reeling, too, the blaze of power that razed through him leaving sparking synapses behind. Black spots flash across his vision. He can't think.

"What the fuck is going on here?" The bartender storms over to them, face red, wringing his dish towel between his hands.

"We're so sorry," Kara begins, but the bartender cuts her off.

"No, I don't want apologies. Y'all are going to sit right there until the police get here." He has a phone in his hand which he lifts to his ear, gesturing towards the table with his rag.

Kara and Superdouche steer Stiles towards a chair and sit him down. Tipped over glasses and spilled cocktails cover the tabletop. Deucalion and Aidan or Ethan sit at the next table over, and Stiles glares at them over Alex's shoulder.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Alex hisses, snapping her fingers in front of his face to get his attention. "You attacked a _blind_ man!"

"He's not totally blind," Stiles says. He doesn't take his eyes off Deucalion who still looks a little bit shell shocked. A grim smile curls his lips. The Alpha is not an easy wolf to rattle.

"He looks pretty blind to me."

"He's a fucking psychopath is what he is."

"Stiles…"

"Alex." Kara cuts her sister off before she can finish whatever sharp comment was about to come out of her mouth. Kara turns to Stiles and takes his hand, tries to hook her fingers around his chin and get him to look at her, but Stiles isn't taking his eyes off Deucalion. "Stiles, talk to us. What is going on? Who is that man?"

But before Stiles can answer, the bar door bangs open, and Detective Sawyer barges through with two uniformed cops behind her. When she sees Stiles, there's a slight hitch in her step and a sigh in her shoulders like 'of course it's him again.' Because that's Stiles. The walking human disaster.

She talks to the bartender first who gestures emphatically and jabs his finger at Stiles a couple of times. Detective Sawyer jots it all down in her notebook and then comes over to talk to the rest of them. "All of you up. Around me. What happened?"

The two groups stand and form a half circle around the detective, Stiles' friends making sure he's as far away from Deucalion as possible. Detective Sawyer glares at them all until one of them finally starts talking. "We were out for drinks," Kara begins.

"Not you," Detective Sawyer cuts her off, looking at Stiles. "Stiles?"

"We were having drinks. Deucalion showed up. I jumped over the table and attacked him." Stiles' voice stays flat, emotionless.

"Why? Did he provoke you?"

"No." Deucalion pokes his head forward. Stiles clenches his fists to keep from decking the Alpha.

Stiles grits his teeth. What to tell them? Stiles still wants to keep as much of his past in the past as he can. "We've had…run-ins in the past. He made a snide comment about my boyfriend."

"I don't want to press charges," Deucalion says with an oily smile on his face. "Stiles and I have a long and colorful past."

"Yeah, because you tried to kill all of my friends!" Stiles yells. He can't take it anymore. Kara has to grab him before he can try and claw Deucalion's throat out.

The entire bar goes silent. He can feel the weight of everyone's eyes on him. "What?" Kara says.

But Deucalion folds his face into a mask of sympathetic pity. "Stiles, you know that's not what actually happened."

Stiles gapes at him. What kind of game is the prick playing? "What the hell are you talking about?"

"We met when you were in Eichen House, remember?"

Stiles' blood runs cold, and there's a roaring sound in his ears. That liar. That fucking liar. What the hell is he doing? He tries to tell them it's not true, but his voice isn't working. His throat has sealed itself off. He can't feel his fingers or toes, either.

"What's Eichen House?" he hears Kara ask, though the sound is dim.

Don't you fucking dare.

"A mental institution," Deucalion says. Stiles' legs give way, and only Kara's hand on his arm keeps him upright. He barely feels it when she helps lower him into a chair. "Stiles was a patient there his junior year, when we met. It's the same institution his mother was in, too, before she died."

Stiles launches himself out of the chair before Kara can stop him and tries to tackle Deucalion. "Don't you talk about my mother!" Aidan/Ethan catches him and tosses him back again. Hands seized hold of him and drag him away, then Maggie is yelling in his face.

"You, outside! Get some air. Kara, go with him."

Gentle hands urge him away from the group, and Deucalion's faux innocent face makes Stiles sick. He can't look at it anymore, so he lets himself be led outside. Sunlight spills across his head as they step outside, mocking him. Stiles rips himself free of Kara and stalks off, kicking a metal garbage can. The dull thud is not at all satisfying, and he only succeeds in hurting his toe.

"Stiles," Kara says, calling him back to himself. "What's going on?"

Again, Stiles has the chance to tell her everything, and again, he falters. Maybe after so many years, the lying and the hiding have become ingrained in him. Maybe it's because if he tells her one thing, he'll have to tell her everything – about the Nogitsune, the people he hurt, the boy he killed. Kara is so good. She'd never look at him the same way again.

"He and his…crew came to town while I was in high school," Stiles says in a bland voice. There's a napkin near his foot, and he focuses on that. "They starting causing havoc. A lot of my friends got hurt." His words gain a sharp bite. "He and everyone he runs with are more dangerous than you can imagine. You can't trust anything he says."

"And this Eichen House business?" Kara asks.

Stiles scowls.

"That part is true, isn't it?" Kara says. Stiles' deepening scowl is answer enough. "Why were you there?"

Before Stiles can come up with a suitable answer, the bar door bangs open, and Detective Sawyer, Alex, and Superdouche pour through. "You're lucky Deucalion isn't pressing charges," Detective Sawyer says. She no longer sounds angry, just tired. "And you're lucky nothing in the bar was broken."

"What did he tell you?" Stiles demands. "You can't believe him."

"Kara, take him home. Somebody stay with him," Detective Sawyer says instead.

Stiles gapes at her. "I don't need a babysitter!"

Detective Sawyer gives him a glare that says she knows exactly what he's thinking; he'll go after Deucalion again the second he gets the chance. Everyone is looking at him differently. Watching him out of the corners of their eyes so they don't have to look at him directly or meet his eyes. They think he's crazy.

And you know what, he is fucking crazy.

He went off the deep end after Derek was killed, maybe even long before that.

There's a darkness in him; he accepts that now. Maybe he's not evil like Deucalion or the Dread Doctors, but he's not good, either.

He's got power, too. Might as well use it.


	10. the babysitter's club

**x. the babysitter's club**

Stiles doesn't speak as he's escorted back to his apartment. The car ride is very tense, very awkward, and full of shared looks between people, none of which are directed at him. No one will even glance at him. Because he's the crazy one. The unstable one. The loony bin patient.

They arrive at the apartment building, and Kara, Alex and Superdouche form a brigade around him to keep him from bolting and locking himself in his apartment. "How about Thai food tonight?" Kara chirps in the elevator, forcing her voice several octaves higher in order to sound upbeat.

 _I only have two plates,_ Stiles thinks, but he doesn't say it. He's not sure if he's talking to them right now.

As Stiles unlocks his door, he considers just slipping inside and slamming it shut again, but Alex seems to have anticipated that move because she budges right up next to him and pushes past him into the apartment.

"Why is there a knife in your wall?" she asks.

"It's just a decoration," he says flatly.

Alex crosses the room and pulls the knife out of the wall to check the point. "No, this is a proper throwing knife. Good quality, too."

"Why do you know about knives?" Stiles says, hoping to trip her up. He takes the knife and heads for his room. Alex follows him. "What are you doing?" he asks at the door.

"Trying to make sure you don't go out the window."

"We're on the tenth floor."

Alex purses her lips but turns away and leaves him be, joining Kara and Superdouche so they can cluster around a Thai restaurant menu.

Stiles shuts the door. Sits down on his bed. Rolls the knife over in his fingers. The wolf plushy sits on his pillow and stares at him. The photo of Derek on the dresser breaks his heart. The overhead lights glint off the blade.

He has ruined everything. Again. He's scared off his new friends. Wrecked a bar. Attacked an Alpha werewolf. Failed to kill said Alpha werewolf. Failed to avenge Derek's death. Failed to accomplish anything that mattered. Just got himself stuck in his apartment with a bunch of around the clock babysitters.

Maybe it's time to stop fighting the inevitable thing he's been fighting since the night Derek died. Because let's face it, Stiles could continue to chase down the Essyolyte, and he could take on Deucalion's Alpha Pack, but where would that end? With Stiles standing on top of a pile of innocent corpses, that's where. Body unscathed. Soul darkened even more than it already is. So what's the point? If Stiles were truly a hero, he would take himself out of the equation completely and prevent Natural Disaster Stiles from tearing through any more lives.

And he could be with Derek again.

Though that's assuming he and Derek even go to the same place.

The knife blade slides to the inside of his wrist. He keeps the edge razor sharp. It wouldn't take much effort to slice through the skin. Just one quick press and slice, and blood would begin to well and take him away. Stiles sees the motion in his mind's eye, feel his fingers twitch.

There's a knock at the door, and Stiles jumps, the knife slipping away from his wrist without leaving a mark. "Stiles?" Alex calls. "Food preference?"

Stiles' breath comes out of him in a shuddering rush. Not here. Not now. He can't be one more mess for his friends to clean up.

He stands and deliberately puts the knife in the back of his closet. "Pad thai," he replies. He dashes wetness from his cheeks with the back of his hand. He hadn't realized he'd been crying.

"Sounds good. You gonna come out and join us?"

It will be suspicious if he doesn't. "Uh, yeah. Just give me one minute."

He finishes wiping off his face, puts on a too big hoodie, and sticks the wolf plushy in the front pocket where he can reach down and rub it. He leaves his room. He doesn't want to, but he does. The others are arranged on his couch and floor, a stack of board games on the table.

Stiles perches on his bean bag and burrows into his hood. "Want to play a game?" Kara asks.

"No, I'll just watch." Stiles stuffs his hands into his pouch and rubs his wolf's ears. Kara gets a game of Monopoly going while they wait for the Thai food, and Stiles pulls out his phone to text Lydia.

 _dont freak out okay?_

Lydia replies barely a minute later. _I don't like the sound of that._

 _its…dont worry. deucalion is here_

A barrage of texts comes through.

 _WHAT?_

 _WHAT THE FUCK?_

 _WHEN?_

 _WHAT HAPPENED?_

 _STILES ARE YOU OKAY?_

 _DO I NEED TO COME DOWN THERE?_

 _SHOULD I BRING THE OTHERS?_

Stiles waits for the texts to stop before he replies. _no i dont need you guys to come down i can handle it i don't want you guys in harms way_

 _he showed up while we were out getting drinks. we got into a bit of a scrape._

 _Stiles, you got into a FIGHT with DEUCALION?_

 _he told my friends about my time in eichen house. they all think im crazy now_

 _That thieving, lying, murdering son of a bitch! Why I should come right down there and tear his throat out with my nails!_

Stiles can see her pacing in her living room, long fingernails clacking away furiously at her phone, two bright spots of color on her cheeks. If he tells her he knows Deucalion had a hand in Derek's death, she really will come down here and try to murder the Alpha. So he keeps mum. Her presence here will just complicate things.

 _If you won't let us come down and help, then tell Kara and Alex. They can help. They can keep you safe._

Stiles can keep himself safe.

 _sure Lydia. foods here got to go_

As Stiles types this message, the buzzer for the downstairs door rings. "Food!" Kara yells, throwing down the dice. "I'll go get it!"

"She's losing, too," Alex says after Kara slams the door shut behind her. "She'll use this as an excuse to stop the game."

Kara comes back with several bags of food, the smell wafting off them making Stiles' stomach curdle. She sets the bags on the coffee table and then goes to rifle through Stiles' cabinets for plates and utensils. She opens the fridge. "Do you have anything to drink other than water?"

"Nope."

Alex passes Stiles a Styrofoam box full of pad thai while Kara carries the plates over. Stiles sets it on the ground, not hungry, then sinks his fingers into his wolf's fur. He considers his options while the others begin to eat. He could use his powers to convince them to leave, but he's never tried to influence more than one person at a time before. Best not to risk it quite yet. So he'll wait. They can't all stay here all the time. Eventually, one of them will grow lax, and he'll slip out and find Deucalion. Vengeance will be his.

"Stiles, there's a lot you're not telling us," Alex says.

Stiles tips his head to the side. If they only knew, they'd go screaming into the night. "Everyone's got secrets."

"Not like you."

Oh, the irony of that statement, coming from her.

"I think you just found out my big secret," Stiles says, voice bitter. "My time in the crazy house."

"Why were you there?" Kara asks, leaning forward to look at him.

Nope, Stiles is not having this conversation sober. He reaches down and fishes a plastic bag out from under his chair. It's one of the various stashes he has hidden around the apartment. This particular one has two pre-rolled joints in it and a lighter.

"Woah, no, no, no," Alex says, practically leaping to her feet as he puts the joint to his lips. "I don't think now's the right time for that."

"What? It calms my nerves. Besides, I have a prescription." He flicks his lighter, running the flame over the end of the joint. "Does anyone want a hit?"

"Ooo, yes." Kara moves closer to him, and Stiles hands her the joint after taking a few puffs on it himself.

"Kara, no–" Alex sighs.

"What? I'm curious. I've never done it before."

"Clark…" Alex looks at Superdouche for help. He can only shrug. It's a little late to stop the two of them.

Stiles lets the weed relax him and wipe all thought from his mind as he settles back in his chair, pulling his wolf from his pocket so he can pet it more easily, missing the electric blue eyes.

"Oh my gosh, cute," Kara crows. "Am I supposed to be feeling something?"

"You've barely had any. Give it time."

"Does he have a name?" Kara asks.

Stiles rubs the wolf's ears. "Derek."

"Like your boyfriend?"

Stiles nods, making a humming sound in the back of his throat.

"How did he die?" Alex asks. "You've never said."

Stiles is just high enough to answer. "He was killed." He's hungry now, so he picks up his pad thai and stuffs a large forkful of noodles into his mouth.

"By who?"

God, look at the eyes on the three of them. So big. So concerned. Staring at him like they want to bore right into him. Stiles fills his lungs with more smoke. He sees blood and guts and the white poke of bone, scared eyes staring into his, weak fingers clutching at his hand. He squeezes his eyes shut, but that just makes the images worse. "An animal attack."

Again with the lying.

"Where you there?" Superdouche asks, and Stiles cannot look at him, cannot see that face because there's a different one overlaid in his mind's eye, one speckled with blood and stubble, lips forming the shape of Stiles' name.

He nods.

"This was after Eichen House?" Superdouche speaks. Stiles wishes he wouldn't.

"After. Just before I came here." Why is Stiles answering these questions?

"Why were you in Eichen House?" Alex asks again.

"My mother, she had frontotemporal dementia. I started…exhibiting similar symptoms junior year of high school. But turned out, I didn't have it. So." The lie feels flimsy. Stiles worries one of them will see through him to the rotten darkness that lies at the core of him. the darkness that he should really end sooner rather than later.

He takes the joint back from Kara and finishes it off, blowing smoke towards the ceiling. "I still don't feel anything," Kara says, disappointed.

Stiles shrugs. "It doesn't affect everyone."

"Hm. Sad."

"We can always try edibles." He sighs and rubs at the bridge of his nose. "Guys, I'm pretty tired. I think I'm going to head to bed. If you really want to keep babysitting me, I guess you can fight over the couch."

He stubs out the last of the joint then stands and weaves his way towards his room, intent on burying himself under his covers. He hears whispering behind him but can't quite make out the words as he shuts his door and stuffs his hand through his hair.

He's halfway across the floor when there's a soft knock. "Stiles? Can I come in?" It's Kara's quiet voice.

Stiles makes sure that all his boards are facing the wall and flips Derek's picture down. "Sure."

Kara enters as he's climbing into bed and has no problem clambering in beside him. Stiles makes sure that they aren't touching. Wouldn't want to infect her, after all. "Oph, I think I ate too much Thai food."

Stiles doesn't have an answer.

"What was Derek like?"

The question surprises Stiles, though he's not sure why. "He was a bit of a dick, honestly. But he was my dick."

"I know what it's like to lose someone important to you," Kara says. "My parents died when I was young. The Danvers took me in and raised me, but I still feel the hole my parents left behind sometimes."

"It never goes away, does it?" Stiles sighs, drumming his thumb against his other hand.

"No, but I don't think I'd want it to."

"I got Derek arrested the first time we met," Stiles says, unsure why he's still talking. "And then got him put on the Beacon Hills Most Wanted list."

"What?" Kara asks. "How? Why?"

"Scott and I may have accused him of murder."

"Oh my God, how did he ever forgive you for that?" Kara demands, laughing a little.

"It's complicated."

The tears come then, burning Stiles' eyes, running down his cheeks. He would happily be enemies with Derek again or have Derek hate him if it meant Derek were still alive. Stiles would trade his own life.

"Oh hon," Kara wraps him up as he begins to shake. He focuses on the scent of her strawberry shampoo. It's a good thing she's here, because the itch is back, stronger than he's ever felt it. He wants to carve something out of himself, though he's not entirely sure what. His grief. His anger. His darkness. His life.

 _"Focus, Stiles."_

 _"I can't focus. I have ADHD."_

 _Stiles and Derek stood in the woods in the middle of a humid summer. Derek was, in theory, teaching Stiles how to track. Problem was, Derek tracked by scent, and Stiles didn't have the patience to scan the underbrush for tiny, nearly invisible clues._

 _"How is this any different from sifting through thousand-year-old books that you can't even read?" Derek demanded, frustrated._

 _"Excuse me, I can to read those books," Stiles corrected. "I've been learning my ancient languages."_

 _"So think of this as an ancient language."_

 _Stiles sneezed, nearly bashing his head on a tree trunk. "I think my allergies are acting up. Can we go home?"_

 _"No," Derek grabbed the back of Stiles' neck and forced him to look back at the ground. "Not until you tell me which way Scott went. Come on. You can do it. Let your senses expand."_

 _"What are you? A Jedi master?"_

 _"Don't go nerd on me, right now. Focus, Stiles."_

 _Stiles scanned the ground, searching for broken twigs, squashed grass, impressions in the dirt, or whatever. He honestly wasn't totally sure what he was supposed to be looking for. He hadn't exactly been listening when Derek had explained tracking to him, too distracted by the way Derek's lips moved._

 _"You could continue teaching me how to track, or you could make out with me," Stiles said slyly. He licked his lips._

 _Derek sighed. "Damnit, Stiles."_

 _A second later, Stiles found himself picked up and shoved against a tree. Derek's lips were chapped and rough against Stiles' since the stupid werewolf refused to use the chap stick Stiles bought him. Hot hands squeezed Stiles' waist, stubble prickly against his cheek, and Stiles twined his fingers through Derek's thick hair. That was his favorite part of Derek aside from his abs and his chest and his face and his ass. Derek's hair was so soft. Perfect for petting._

 _"Are you shitting me right now?" Scott's incredulous voice broke through the bubble around Stiles and Derek. "Did you guys even_ try _to find me?"_

 _"Stiles distracted me," Derek said._

 _"Way to throw me under the bus," Stiles grumbled._

 _"Come on, guys, this is series. Tracking is an important skill for Stiles to know." Scott stood between two trees, staring at them with his arms crossed, trying to look authoritative, though that had never been a natural expression on him._

 _Stiles jumped on Derek, wrapping his legs around Derek's waist and his arms around Derek's neck. "Making out with Derek is an important skill for me to know."_

 _"I'm going to have to agree with Stiles on this one," Derek said, smirking._

 _Scott threw his hands up. "You two are impossible." He stormed off, leaving Stiles and Derek alone._

 _"I thought he'd never leave," Derek muttered in Stiles ear, and, laughing, the two of them tumbled to the ground, wrapped around each other._

Stiles wakes up as the little spoon to Kara's big one. Tears prick at him again, but he forces them back. He wishes the arms were thicker, the chest broader. Only the temperature is about right. Kara feels him shift and wakens, yawning and stretching as she untangles herself. "Pancakes?" she asks.

"Sure," Stiles mumbles.

Kara rolls out of bed and disappears, leaving Stiles drained and exhausted despite the night's sleep. She brings him breakfast in bed because she's good like that, and her pancakes are delicious, like they should be. Like the ones Stiles used to make for Derek.

"Eat up," Kara says, forcing a smile.

A week passes. Kara, Alex, Superdouche, and Winn take turns babysitting, with James covering a few shifts when he's not too busy at CatCo. Stiles and Superdouche turn in their first article, though Ms. Grant wants at least one more follow up. There's no mention of Stiles' magical ritual theory, which Superdouche hasn't brought up since that day but Stiles hasn't forgotten. He's got only eight days left until the next full moon.

He goes to his therapy appointment, escorted to and from it by Alex, who thankfully doesn't ask what he's doing. Most of the time, he just paces around his apartment like a caged animal, snapping at whichever friend is watching him that day. That or he mopes all day and refuses to say a word to anyone. He's still formulating a plan for getting at Deucalion.

"Alright, get up," Alex says when it's her turn to watch him. It's one of his moping days, and he's currently wrapped in his comforter eating Ben and Jerry's.

"Why?" he asks.

"Because you need to get out of this apartment, and I've got an activity that'll clear your head."

Stiles looks at her suspiciously. "What kind of activity?"

"It's a surprise. Get dressed. Athletic clothes."

"You won't take no for an answer, will you?" Stiles asks.

"Nope."

"Fine," Stiles sighs and rolls out of his chair. Does he even own athletic clothes? When he gets into his room, he finds that the answer is no, he does not. The closest he has is a pair of sweatpants and a baggy t-shirt. Of course, this leaves his scars exposed. He looks at them in the mirror. Ugly. Red. Humiliating.

"I don't own exercise clothes," he calls through the closed door.

"I thought you might say that. don't worry. I brought you a set."

Alex opens the door and tosses a bag at him. Inside, Stiles finds a pair of basketball shorts and a lightweight, long sleeve shirt. He approves of the color scheme – red and black – so he gets dressed and then rejoins Alex.

"I don't like surprises," Stiles says. He's had a few too many nasty ones in the past.

But Alex just leads the way out of his apartment and down to her car. Stiles sits in sullen silence in the passenger seat, drumming his thumb on his knee. They wind up at a small gym with only a few cars parked around back. The brick building is a little dingy looking, with graffiti crawling up one wall and scraggly grass pushing through the cracks in the sidewalk.

"Are we meeting with a mob boss?" Stiles asks as he steps from the car.

Alex laughs, dragging a duffel bag out of the trunk. "Not exactly."

They head into a room with lightly padded floors, white circles marking up the black. Alex drops her duffel to a bench and unzips it, pulling long strips of cloth from inside. "Give me your hands," she says and starts wrapping the strips around his wrists and hands. "Ever thrown a punch before?"

Stiles just kind of shrugs.

After a few years of getting their asses kicked, the Pack realized that Derek, despite his claims, really had no clue how to fight, so the entire Pack went out and took various martial arts lessons until they could finally hold their own.

"I'll teach you a few things." Alex lifts her hands into a guard and bounces away from him. She's stripped off her leather jacket to just a tank top, muscles banding her arms.

"Why are we doing this?" Stiles asks.

"To distract you. Help you clear your mind. Come on, try to hit me."

"You're a scientist. How do you know how to fight?" Stiles asks as he paces into the center of the circle, hoping to catch her in a lie.

"I've been taking lessons since I was young." Alex grins at him, beckoning with one hand. "Now, come on. Try to hit me."

"Do I have to?" Stiles sighs. He doesn't feel like doing this. It seems like a lot of work.

"Fine. Then I'll hit you."

Alex comes at him, lashing out with one fist, moving faster than Stiles expects even though he knows that she has secret agent training. She's almost werewolf fast. But Stiles has always trained with people who are quicker than him, so he's able to just barely able to sway out of the way. Alex looks a little surprised when her fist connects with nothing but air. Stiles snaps his hand up, going for her throat from the side, and Alex blocks him with a forearm.

"Stiles sends a snap kick at her knee, catching the side of it as Alex twists out of the way, and Stiles pushes forward as she crumbles back, and then suddenly, he's on his back as Alex somehow knocks his legs out from under him. "You do know a few things," she says, sounding impressed.

"My dad's a sheriff. What do you expect?" Stiles sweeps his legs as he finishes talking and knocks Alex over, immediately lunging at her stomach elbow first. Alex bats it away, and they roll across the pads, fighting for the upper hand.

Alex is much better than him. That much is readily apparent, and Stiles knows he will lose this fight in the next couple of seconds if he doesn't do something tricky, but that's okay; Stiles is used to fighting losing battles.

Something in Stiles' brain switches. Suddenly, he's not sparring with his friend in the safe confines of the gym; he's scrambling for survival in the dark of the forest while claws scramble for his throat.

He twists, bucking like an animal, clawing at soft, vulnerable spots, elicits a cry of pain, of shock, and then the monster is trying to twist away from him. He clamps down tighter. If he can get his arms around the neck, he can end this. Fur turns to scales beneath his hands. It's Derek's killer he's fighting. This is his chance.

An elbow connects with his head, and he's knocked away. He rolls backwards, comes to his feet, standing in a dark, dead forest, ash floating through the air. There the Essyolyte stands. Hulking. Scaled. Monstrous. It roars at him, and something buzzes in his head, but he's wise to its tricks now, and he blocks it out.

"Your mine," he whispers.

The Essyolyte bellows at him, like it's trying to say something, making no move to come for him, and Stiles has no weapon with him, but that doesn't matter. He has his hands. He launches himself at the alien, and an instant later, he finds himself on the ground, smacking his head on the strangely soft ground so hard everything begins to ring, and oh God, it's going to kill him, claws on his throat, over his heart, and he can't decide if this is good or not; a chance to be reunited with Derek in exchange for his shot at revenge.

He blinks.

The world fuzzes, blurs, then re-resolves around him. He stares up into Alex's face. He's rattled the unrattleable; he can see it in her eyes. A deep shock. An open fear.

"I—" Stiles doesn't have words. He doesn't think he can talk his way out of this one.

Alex climbs off of him. Hops back several feet. "What the _fuck_ , Stiles?"

"I—" Stiles doesn't move. "I'm sorry."

"What the hell happened?" Alex doesn't want apologies.

"I…dissociate sometimes."

"Where did you go? You—you looked like you wanted to kill me."

"I'm sorry," Stiles whispers, staring up at the ceiling.

"I want the full story, Stiles. I know there's a lot you're not telling us, and I was willing to let it slide before, even last week when we asked you point blank and you gave us half-truths. But that was serious. You tried to kill me."

Stiles' voice goes detached. "You wouldn't like the full story."

"I like not knowing even less."

"It wasn't an animal attack," he says after a long pause. "A creature killed him. Some kind of alien. Right in front of me. That's where I was. It was trying to kill me."

"And Deucalion?"

"I believe he controls the alien."

Alex moves to stand beside him so he's forced to at least see her in his field of vision even if he doesn't look at her. "That's a big leap to make."

"You don't know him like I do." Even just talking about Deucalion fills Stiles with a burning, itching rage, and his hands clench by his side, knuckles digging into the mat.

"There's still something you're leaving out," Alex insists. She kneels and grabs a fistful of his shirt, forcing him to sit up and look her in the eye. Stiles wonders if she'll hit him. He wonders if he wants her to

"That's all. I promise." Stiles nudges out with his mind, but he finds walls where he usually finds open roads to the origin of thoughts and feelings. He doesn't push, like he might with anyone else. Instead, he turns to oil and oozes around her walls, searching for chinks, cracks, crevices. The armor is nearly impervious, but he finds a single hole, tiny but enough to slip through. "That's all," he repeats as he nudges her disbelief down just enough. The lightest of touches. Stiles doesn't think she even knows he's there.

Alex blinks and loosens her grip on his shirt. "You promise you've told me everything?"

"Yes." Stiles nods.

Alex stands, dragging a hand through her hair. Stiles slumps back to the ground. "I guess we shouldn't do any more sparring."

"Probably smart."

Alex tosses a towel on his face. "Come on. Let's go."

"I'm sorry," Stiles whispers in the car. He should have expected this to happen. He hurts everyone he cares about. He should just cut all ties. But he finds he doesn't want to. "I'm evil." The words are out before he knows they've even formed.

"What?" Alex shoots him a startled look, but the vehicle doesn't even swerve.

"I'm evil. You shouldn't associate with me. You'll just get hurt."

"You're not evil, Stiles. I've seen evil. And you're not it."

"You're a lab tech. When have you ever seen evil?" Another chance to catch her in a lie, not that he really cares. It's simply the thing he's supposed to say.

"You're not evil." Alex reaches over and squeezes his hand, and Stiles begins to cry.

* * *

Two days have passed since the incident at the gym, and Alex doesn't say a word about it, to him or anyone else. Stiles chooses Winn as the weakest link to exploit for the first part of his plan, Tonight, Winn is his babysitter, perfect timing, schlepping half an electronics store over to Stiles' apartment for a serious video game night.

He chucks a controller into Stiles' lap. "Call of Duty or Fallout?"

"Fallout." Stiles lifts a plate off the coffee table and holds it out to Winn. "Brownie?"

He's spiked the batch as part of his plan. He feels a little bit bad about it.

"Yes!" Winn crows and devours a square. Stiles smiles to himself. Phase one, complete.

They play Fallout 4 until the pot begins to kick in, and Winn grows looser and louder, more apt to laugh. Stiles reaches out and finds his mind pliable. It's easy enough to plant an image of himself on the couch, contentedly playing the game, in Winn's mind, and Winn doesn't blink when Stiles stands and goes to his room to prepare. Phase two, complete.

Derek's leather jacket goes on over a red and black plaid like armor, Allison's knife secreted away in a pocket, magic doodads scattered about his body. He leaves the apartment to the sound of Winn's laughter over something phantom-Stiles says.

It takes Stiles an hour to travel across the city to the suburb that houses Deucalion's den. He doesn't yet know what his plan is. He doubts he can kill Deucalion by himself, though the desire to do so burns within him. He suspects the Alphas are behind the ley line ritual but he needs to know for sure, and he needs to know if they have some kind of wizard or druid with them, summoning flame sprites and golems, or if that's someone else entirely.

Stiles pulls a white crystal from his pocket and wraps a strand of wolfsbane around it, and the gem grows a darker green the closer he gets to the epicenter of the werewolf energy. It leads him to a grey, two-story home with pale blue trim and flowers out front that are just well tended enough to be socially acceptable. Stiles imagines he can see rot seeping out from beneath the paneling, oily smoke billowing from the chimney, red eyes blinking in the darkened windows.

The home across the way has a tree house settled in the branches of a tall oak, and Stiles scrambles up the ladder. The inside is loosely decorated with a child's drawings and bright fabrics. Stiles drags the low table over to the window that looks across at the Den House. He sits on top of it, lifting a monocle to his eye. The whole world goes dark but for three vaguely humanoid splotches, glowing fiercely red against the blackness. One floats above the others—the second floor, presumably, and blazes like a sun through a sky of blood.

A breeze stirs Stiles' hair, drifting in through the window, but he's not concerned about the werewolves smelling him; that's what the pendant around his neck is for. He puts a different monocle to his eye, searching for magical energies of any kind, and there it is—navy blue swirls oozing through the darkness.

Stiles ticks off facts in his head. He's seen Deucalion with the twins, but he has yet to spot Kali or Ennis. He knows of no reason why they wouldn't be here, though. They also have a sorcerer/wizard/Druid with them. Which complicates matters. He has four days until the next full moon.

He can't take out three to five Alpha werewolves by himself, no matter how badly he wants to rush in there and fuck some shit up, or take a match and set the whole building on fire.

He needs help. And he knows just where to get it.

* * *

The next night, Superdouche is his babysitter which is perfect for his plans. Superdouche sweeps through the door bearing two pizza boxes, which he drops on the counter. "So Kara told me I need to watch Alien," he says, falling on Stiles' couch. "Have you seen it?"

"Aliens is better. if you're going to watch one, watch that one." Stiles blinks. Was that a semi-normal conversation? God no. "But I have a better plan." Stiles sits down beside him, almost too close, and stares Superdouche full in the face because he knows how disconcerting (and thus convincing) he can be close up, what with his too-dark brown eyes and his pale skin.

"What?" Superdouche asks, sounding a little suspicious.

"I know who killed those people, and I know where to find them."

"So call the police."

Stiles shakes his head. "Think of the scoop. The profile." In every sense of the word, it's bad logic, but that doesn't matter when you have mind control on your side.

"You want to try and take the murderers on?" Superdouche demands, shocked. He tries to scoot away from Stiles, but there's nowhere to go, trapped as he is against the couch arm. "We'd get ourselves killed."

Stiles begins reaching out lightly with his darkness, feeling a bit nauseous. "No, we won't. Look, there's not enough time to go to the police, for them to find enough evidence against these guys to get a warrant, order and receive said warrant, then go after these dicks. I know you don't believe mea bout the magic ritual, but believe me or not, the next phase is in three days, and people are going to die. We can stop that." Always play on the heroism. Stiles turns that dial up in Superdouche's brain.

"How do you know it's them?" Superdouche asks. Stiles can tell he's beginning to waver.

"I majored in Criminal Investigations. My dad is a cop. I know it's them."

"Call Supergirl," Superdouche suggests. "James can get ahold of her."

Stiles pushes harder. "It has to be us."

"Supergirl is busy," Superdouche agrees distantly, nodding. "I think I saw that she's fighting some alien down at the docks."

Stiles has to suppress a smile that quickly turns into disgust. It's too easy. "It has to be us," he repeats.

A nod from Superdouche. "It has to be us."

"Good."

Leaving the pizza cooling on the counter, the two of them head out into the city, taking Superdouche's dumbass yellow bug out to the suburbs, Stiles directing. He has Superdouche park two blocks away from the Den House. "Here. Put this on." He holds out a pendant that matches his own, that will mask their scents from the Alpha Pack.

"I'm not really a jewelry person."

"Neither am I. Put it on."

"Why?"

Stiles huffs out an annoyed sigh and tosses the cord over Superdouche's head. "Just trust me."

They move through the dusky, darkening streets, and Stiles makes a beeline for the treehouse, clambering up the ladder. But Superdouche pauses halfway across the lawn. "Have you been here before?" he demands, arms folded in righteous indignation.

"Keep your voice down," Stiles hisses, shooting a glance at the Den House, but nothing moves. "Get up here."

Superdouche eventually joins him up in the treehouse, giving Stiles enough time to check the house out through his monocle. Five signatures. Just his luck. "You've been here before," Superdouche repeats as he walks up behind Stiles. He at least keeps his voice down.

"Fine, yes, I was here last night," Stiles admits, still focused on the Den House.

" _How?_ Winn says he was with you all night."

Stiles shrugs. "I slipped him a bunch of weed and snuck out."

Superdouche's mouth drops open. "You what?" He sounds like he's not sure if he should be furious, stunned, or a little bit awed.

Stiles doesn't reply, just studies the building some more. "I think there are five of them."

" _Five?_ Stiles, that's way too many for us to handle!" Stiles can sense that his influence is slipping a little bit, but he's too intent on his surveillance to fix it right now. "What the hell are we doing here? This is insane!"

"This is justice," Stiles whispers.

"Justice? Or revenge?"

Stiles tears his gaze away from the house long enough to glare at Superdouche. When he turns back, Deucalion stands in the lawn, staring up at the ripening moon with his blind eyes. A sour smile crosses Stiles' lips. He moves to leap out the window like that's a perfectly reasonable thing to do, but a hand grabs the back of his collar and yanks him down. "What are you doing?"

"Shh!" Well shit, now Deucalion definitely knows they're here.

Superdouche peeks out the window. "That's _Deucalion_. Stiles, you lied to me."

"I did not lie." Stiles pokes his finger in Superdouche's face, fighting down his rising rage. "Deucalion and the killer just happen to be the same person."

There's a knock at the treehouse trapdoor. The two of them freeze-frame, staring at each other with wide eyes. Before either of them can move, the trapdoor opens, and Deucalion climbs into the small room. Though he's not a physically large man, his presence fills the small space, Alpha waves rolling off him. "Door was unlocked. The knock was just a courtesy." He smiles at them—bares his teeth, more like. "Now, doesn't this count as trespassing?"

"Maybe. But so are you," Stiles points out.

"What are you doing here, Stiles?" Deucalion leans on his white cane, blocking the exit.

"Gig's up, dickface," Stiles snarls. "I know what you're up to. It ends here."

"Yeah, and who's going to stop me?" Deucalion says it as a joke, no doubt for Superdouche's benefit. He adds a smile sharp only to Stiles' eyes. "You and your boyfriend's lookalike?" He studies Superdouche a little more closely. "Certainly is interesting company you keep."

Superdouche starts a little, takes a single step back.

Stiles straightens, his hair brushing the ceiling, and takes two paces towards the Alpha. "Do you know what Scott, Allison, and I had to do to stop that Darach you created?" He pitches his voice low. "Do you have any idea the mark it left behind?"

"Which one is Allison again? The pretty brunette one that died?"

Allison's knife flies out of Stiles' pocket, but Deucalion sways to the side just enough to make it look like a miss.

"Stiles!" Superdouche yelps.

"Would you two like to come in?" Deucalion asks, smiling a sickly John-the-next-door-neighbor smile, and beckons for the trap door. "Have a drink? Talk this out?"

"No," Stiles snarls.

Deucalion tsks, wags a finger. "It wasn't a request."

Stiles narrows his eyes but walks towards the trapdoor, Superdouche hanging onto his sleeve and trying to whisper something in his ear. Stiles shakes him off. Derek would kill him for walking into the Alpha's lair, but then, Derek would do the exact same thing, only his goal would be to start a fight rather than gather info. Though Stiles may also be looking to start a fight.

Deucalion frees the knife from the wall. Stiles tenses, but the wolf just flips it around and offers it to Stiles hilt first, smiling. Stiles warily tucks it into his pocket.

"Come on then." They follow Deucalion out of the treehouse and across the road to the Den House, led all the way to the kitchen, to the belly of the beast. The rest of the Pack lounges around the island. The pug-faced twins. Sharply grinning Kali who has at least put her claws away, and the stony Ennis, who Stiles has never actually heard speak.

"If we get out of this, I'm never listening to a word you say again," Superdouche whispers in Stiles' ear.

Kali grins, shark-like.

Stiles notices a sixth person in the room, one that Superdouche doesn't see. They're dressed in black, sunk deep into the shadows of the corner, silver glinting out from beneath a deep hood.

 _Hello, child of the Nemeton_ , a voice like liquid mercury whispers in his head.

"Would you boys like anything to drink?" Deucalion asks before Stiles can answer the voice.

"No," Stiles says.

"Have one anyways." Deucalion snaps his fingers and Ennis starts pouring scotch. "I heard rumors about what happened after we left. About the things you did. What was it like? Having all that power?"

"What are you guys talking about?" Superdouche asks. Ennis tries to hand him a drink, but he just stares at him.

"Clark, go home," Stiles says without taking his eyes off Deucalion.

Deucalion shakes his head, and one of the twins moves towards the door. "Your boyfriend's lookalike isn't goint anywhere."

 _An alien, a dark spark, and an Alpha werewolf walk into a bar_ … the voice murmurs.

Deucalion accepts a scotch from Ennis and takes a sip, perching on the stool Kali draws up for him. For a moment, Stiles is struck by the dichotomy of their situation. An alien, himself, and a Pack of Alpha werewolves all seconds from ripping each other's throats out, all sitting around a granite island in a kitchen that a forty-year old socialite would've drooled over.

"Now, I was wondering," Deucalion continues, "did you kill your pretty little friend yourself, or did you just orchestrate the circumstances?"

 _Don't try to use your powers_ , the voice warns. _You won't like the results_.

Stiles stares at Deucalion, working his jaw, his fingers drumming on the granite. "Once upon a time," he begins, his voice rolling out of his mouth like black honey, "there was a boy. All he wanted to do was save his father's life, and so he did what any good son would do. He risked everything—mind, body, and soul, and he found his father just in the nick of time. And everything was fine. For a while."

"I didn't invite you here for story time," Deucalion drawls.

"But the boy had opened up a door inside himself." Stiles looks at Superdouche, offers him a small smile. Cat's out of the bag now. "And something found its way through. The boy became a thing. And the thing committed terrible acts, hurt everyone around him, even the people he cared about the most." Stiles looks down at his hands. The fingers that never belonged to him. The palms that were made out of darkness and dust and dirty white bandages. He's surprised that dust doesn't pour out with every cut he makes. "The boy's friends exorcised his demon, but when the boy came back, his very form had been stolen and something of the demon left behind, something that the boy spent so long hiding that it began to fester and rot him from the inside out, leaving behind nothing but a shell."

Deucalion claps slowly; one, two, three. "A cute fairytale."

"A warning," Stiles says with a shrug. "Ask your friend in the shadows."

Superdouche jerks, noticing the hooded figure for the first time, his fingers landing on Stiles' shoulders.

"Now, if you don't mind, we'll be leaving." Stiles turns Superdouche towards the door and walks right up to the twin who doesn't move until he gets a nod from Deucalion. "Be seeing you."

 _I'm sure we will_.

Stiles and Superdouche leave the Den House and walk down the street in silence, Stiles just a few steps in front. "That story," Superdouche says when the car is in sight. Here it comes. "That was… a metaphor, right?"

Stiles snorts, unable to believe that Superdouche just handed him such an easy out. "Yeah, something like that."

"Look, I didn't understand a lot of what happened in there. Why Deucalion kept calling me your boyfriend's lookalike, or what happened to your friend, but Stiles, you're not rotten. You're a good man."

They're driving by this time, and Stiles stares out the window, watching the streetlights flash by, blurring in the darkness. He doesn't answer Superdouche.

"Look, tell the others about to night, or mention that you snuck out on Winn." Superdouche guides them through a turn, grandpa slow. "But those guys aren't the killers. You should try to put them out of your mind. And about that magical ritual. Focus on yourself."

That's the last thing Stiles wants to do. Looks like he's alone on this one.


	11. void

_A/N - Thanks for your patience everyone. I hope you enjoy this chapter_

* * *

 **xi. void**

Stiles spends the next few days withdrawing from his friends and preparing for the full moon. He ignores texts and shuttles himself back and forth between his apartment and the Order of Illysium store, collecting supplies and delivering the strand of Kara's hair, as promised, which he procured before he cut her out. He refuses to answer the door when the others knock, and he lets all calls go to voicemail. He crafts spells, brews potions, does everything he can think of to get ready.

At some point, Cat Grant threatens to fire him.

He ignores that email, too.

The day comes. The day of the full moon. Every hour, Superdouche sends him a barrage of messages, demanding entry to his apartment, asking to know what the hell is going on, urging him not to do anything rash. Stiles knows that both Superdouche and Kara are listening in on his every move, but he warded his apartment against their ears long ago. Someone—it alternates between Kara, Alex, and Superdouche—waits outside his door, but he's found another way out of his apartment.

Two hours until sunset, he begins to prepare. Black jeans, with two packets of powder in each back pocket. A black button up, faint lines of grey shot through it, the cuffs worn and a smidge too long. A dark hoodie, then Derek's leather jacket on top, like armor, vials stashed in every pocket Allison's knife goes in the sheath he made for his arm, a greave that lies under his layers. He slings his satchel across his shoulder. Mountain ash and other spells bits are nestled inside.

He leaves a note on the kitchen counter. For if he doesn't come home. It only says I'M SORRY.

A few days ago, Stiles made a short range portal rune, connected to a second stone he hid in an alley just outside the building. The rune is painted on the back wall of his closet, and he activates it with a trace of his fingers. The rune glows maroon, his teeth buzz, and then he's standing in a dark alley, behind a dumpster.

Stiles starts to walk, hood over his head, silent buds in his ears. If he knew how to pray, now would be the time, but he was never a godly man, even before the monsters and the magic. Hard to believe in an all powerful, benevolent being when he had to watch his mother disintegrate before his very eyes and wait in the dark for his father to come home safely every night. And then he met _real_ all-powerful beings and realized that they aren't benevolent. Not at all.

 _Derek, I don't know if you're listening. I don't know if it works like that. I do know this is exactly the sort of thing you would tell me not to do. Don't be a hero, Stiles. Let someone else do the dirty work. Keep yourself safe. Where did that get us, Derek? Just where the fuck did that get us? With Allison stabbed through the stomach with a sword. With you dead and burned to ash. So I'm doing it my way. I'm going to kill these motherfuckers. Scott and his naive little True-Alpha-we-don't-kill-people bullshit can go to hell._

 _I'll see you soon._

He arrives at the park around 10:30. The night is quiet and the benches empty, the grass silver in the light of the full moon. As Stiles enters the park, he pulls one last thing from his bag. He rolls the mask over in his hands. It's an oval of black onyx, cut smooth with a simple spell, no eye or mouth holes to mar the surface. He slips it onto his face, and the world goes grey. A second later, color bleeds back into the park, more vibrant than it has any right to be. The ley lines sparkle white beneath the grass, and the intersection by the fountain explodes into rainbows. He can feel the power tingling against his spine.

After a few preparations, Stiles sits on the fountain ledge, one leg propped up beside him, an elbow resting on his knee. He's perfectly still. That's a rarity. The buzzing energy is gone—has been for a while, honestly—and in its place, he is carved of volcanic rock after all the heat has drained away. His edges are sharp. They spare no one who gets close, not even himself.

He doesn't have to wait long for his prey. At about a quarter till eleven, the Alpha Pack arrives in full force. Aiden and Ethan in matching leather jackets, Kali with her long claws digging into the dirt, Ennis, stone-faced as always, Deucalion leading the way, and his strange warlock hiding in the shadows at the back.

"Stiles," Deucalion says, hands wrapped around his cane. "Dramatic enough?"

"If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Or whatever."

Stiles stands and takes a jar from his pocket. It breaks when he casts it to the ground, and the park lights up in a series of bright flashes, moving in concentric rings from the fountain. Deucalion reaches out, his hand repelled by the barrier. He smiles. "Mountain ash. Cute. You know my friend here can break it." He gestures, and the warlock glides forward a step.

Stiles shrugs. "Be my guest."

The warlock stoops and sweeps their hands through the first line of mountain ash they come to. The barrier flashes and breaks, but before Deucalion can advance more than ten feet, he smacks right into another burst of light. Stiles smiles, a tight, barren thing. "Have fun."

All the false pleasantry falls from Deucalion's face. "You don't know what you're messing with here, Stiles." He bites off Stiles' name. "There are forces at play here you can't possibly understand."

"Don't give me that bullshit, overdramatic villain line," Stiles snarls as the warlock breaks another mountain ash barrier. "Why don't you just fuck off back to whatever dark hole you crawled out of."

Another barrier breaks. Three of the five he set up.

"Your entire Pack—your 'True Alpha'—couldn't defeat us. What makes you think you can, all by your little lonesome?"

Stiles releases any remaining hold he had on past-Stiles, good-Stiles. He draws himself upright off the fountain, gliding forward to the nearest line of mountain ash. "Do you know what happened after you left? Do you know what I became?"

The warlock parts the fourth barrier, and Deucalion and Stiles stand face to face, inches apart. Stiles can see his black mask reflected in Deucalion's blind eyes. "What did you become?" the Alpha sneers, bored.

Stiles pauses. "Void."

When the final mountain ash barrier fails, Stiles breathes out, and the world shifts. Deucalion staggers back a step. "What have you done?"

"Given you sight."

Even an Alpha Pack has fears, and Stiles can see them, if he pushes deep enough. He draws them out, watches the visions of them laid over the real world. Aiden and Ethan see each other's dead bodies, savaged, torn, pained. Ennis stands alone in a forest, abandoned by Deucalion as hunters prowl on his trail. Kali is human again and powerless as a shadowy, too-masculine figure stalks her. Stiles gives Deucalion the most beautiful vision, a sunset spilling across a deep blue lake, and then it all fades away to blackness over and over again. In the real world, Deucalion's blind eyes fill with tears.

But Stiles can't touch the warlock. Fire surges where their mind should be, and Stiles can't get close without being burned. A fiery arm lashes out from the roiling mass and smashes into him. Stiles flies back, slams into the fountain, and splashes into the water.

 _You've got power, but you're untrained,_ a voice whispers in his head. _You won't win this._

But Stiles doesn't need to win, just stall.

He drags himself out of the water, dripping, panting. Half his traps have shattered, Ennis and a twin still stuck while the other struggles to snap his brother out of it. Kali gouges her claws into the ground, free but rattled. Only Deucalion has full control of himself, and his eyes burn with rage. He roars and shifts fully. Coarse side burns sprout down his cheeks, and his brow thickens, animalistic. His eyes glow completely red, from the whites to the iris to the pupil. Claws erupt, lunging at Stiles' face, and only his carefully drawn reflex rune allows him to jerk out of the way in time.

He can hear the warlock murmuring under their breath, fist alight with crackling witch-fire, and they hurl the blue-white ball at Stiles. As he dives out of the way, the last of his concentration fails, freeing the rest of the Alpha Pack. Stiles leaps out of the pool as the witch-fire explodes above him, showering his back in sparks that prick and burn and burrow under his skin, and he rolls across the ground. He comes up in a crouch, glaring at a unified Alpha Pack as it stalks towards him.

"Who's your sacrifice?" Stiles asks as he stands.

"Why, you, of course," Deucalion growls.

At least that's one less thing to worry about. If he can just not die for the next 15 minutes, he'll stop the ritual.

And there's the irony.

"Be a good boy, and I'll make sure its painless," Deucalion promises.

Stiles strips off his three layers and lets them fall to the ground. Even the warlock's step falters when they see the mosaic carved there. Before leaving his apartment, Stiles cut power runes into his very flesh. Strength, speed, and agility on his chest, great, sweeping lines that have dripped tracks of blood down his skin. Wards protect his arms, and spells wait to be activated by a touch of the fingers.

Deucalion sniffs, scenting blood and power, and holds out a hand for his Pack to stop. They stand in a half-moon around Stiles. "You really have gone insane."

Stiles shrugs. "That's one word for it."

He activates one of the runes on his knuckles and punches. Dark red energy explodes from his fist as the rune glows like fire—and burns like it, too. The Alpha Pack scatters. Deucalion ducks under the burst and rolls towards Stiles, surging to his feet with his claws swinging, but Stiles catches them on a shield ward, power roaring through him to up his reflexes.

This must be what the werewolves feel like every minute of the day. Every tendon, every muscle, every line of bone doing just as it is told with the utmost efficiency, power coursing like electricity through wire. Stiles has never really had power before—he only watched the Nogitsune wield it. He's always stood at the sidelines, maybe swung a bat a time or two, but he never had the same raw power as anything they fought.

Now, God, he's _alive_ with it.

He blocks a punch, wards flaring, and activates a second knuckle, launching it at Deucalion's face, his sense rune warning him of a presence at his back, so he drops and sweeps his leg, calf connecting with calf, the aim of his blast thrown off so that the red energy flies off into the sky. A twin hits the ground with a grunt. Stiles rolls away from Deucalion and grabs his knife, driving the blade deep into the twin's shoulder. A hand seizes his jacket, flings him back. Wards flare across his back and shoulders to protect him from the fall, but when he hits the ground and rolls to the stop, he can feel the runes beginning to weaken.

He climbs to his feet, panting, ready for round two, just as the twin rips the knife free and throws it in the fountain. Stiles grins, feral. The twin's face falls a second later when he realizes that the simple wound isn't healing. Faint wisps of purple smoke rise from his shoulder.

"Wolfsbane," the twin growls and rushes Stiles, but gets a faceful of powder for his trouble, pulled from a little baggy in Stiles' back pocket. He shrieks and stops as if he's run into a wall, clawing at his eyes. Stiles throws a second fistful of powder and traps the twin in a circle of mountain ash. It won't last long with the warlock around, but at least it will be a distraction.

Four werewolves lunge at Stiles, but he dive rolls between them. His runes leave faintly glowing afterimages in his wake. He scoops up his leather jacket and pulls a vial from his pocket. Eeny, meany, miney, moe. He flings it at Ennis. The vial erupts in a cascade of green fire and completely envelops the werewolf. For a silent man, he sure knows how to scream. The sound rises higher and higher, anguished, terrified, tortured. Kali gasps, a hand flying to her mouth at the sight of the human torch, the other stretched out to help her packmate.

"I wouldn't touch him," Stiles advises. "That's Greek fire."

Kali snatches her hand back.

Deucalion's whole face contorts as the green flames and Ennis's wretched figure are reflected in his blind eyes. "I take it back. You will die painfully."

"You'll have to catch me first." Stiles presses the invisibility rune near his hip and disappears. It will only last thirty seconds, but that should be enough time to wreck some more havoc. The world goes blurry around him, the colors fuzzing and blending into each other whenever someone moves. Wolven shadows surround the Alphas, though Ennis's spectral shape is more skeleton than beast, tipping its head back to howl at the moon even as Ennis collapses.

The warlock's shadow is as large as a megalodon, blotting out everything around it. Navy blue lines flow through it, pulsing, following what Stiles' imagines are veins. Its shape changes between human and bear and wolf and octopus and dragon and hydra and on and on and on. Stiles has to tear his eyes away because he can feel its mesmerizing power.

The warlock flickers, one moment freeing the twin from his prison and the next right in front of Stiles. A shadowy bear paw the size of Stiles' torso bats him in the chest, knocking him to the ground and into visibility. Power rushes from him in a painful cascade. He lies on the ground and gasps. Three deep cuts mar his chest, destroying several of his runes.

At least Ennis has fallen silent. The green flames flicker merrily at the edge of Stiles' vision, and the stench of burning flesh fills the air. Kali howls, heartbroken and enraged all at once. Stiles grins.

A shadow falls over him and blots out the full moon. Deucalion's wolfed-out face snarls down at him, all coarse fur and jagged lines. "Time to die, boy."

"But it's not midnight yet," Stiles quips.

Deucalion drives his claws into Stiles' shoulder and drags him to his feet. Stiles barely feels the fresh pain; there's too much input from the mosaic he carved himself. Deucalion drags him toward the ley line intersection, and Stiles lets him. He'll play the weaker part, let Deucalion think he's won, strike when the moment is right. Derek didn't teach Stiles that. Derek taught Stiles to run and hide and stay alive. Stiles had to learn this all on his own.

The moment comes when two figures in red and blue slam to the ground before the fountain.

" _Luka!_ " Deucalion bellows at his druid, and Stiles smile. Got you. " _Now_."

The warlock begins to chant, but Stiles anticipated this and draws a small glass bauble from his pocket. He throws it so it breaks at Luka's feet, murmuring, " _Shut the fuck up_." The spell is homemade—he can say whatever trigger phrase he wants. A spectral cat leaps from the broken glass and into their mouth, catching their tongue and cutting off the flow of words. Stiles almost can't believe that actually worked. While Deucalion is still trying to work out what he's just done, Stiles punches him in the face with the third of his four energy blasts. Deucalion flies back, feet lifting off the ground, and drops Stiles.

All this happens in the two seconds between when the Supercousins and their green companion land and when Kara opens her mouth to speak.

"What's going on here?" she finally manages to splutter as Stiles stands and takes stock of his remaining runes. The situation is not good.

"Leave, I've got this handled." A rune carved into the inside of his mask distorts his voice.

Kara and Superdouche's eyes widen as they take him in. The green-faced alien in red and black beside them seems less surprised. "Who—who are you?" Kara asks.

Stiles spins and kicks a rising Deucalion in the face, the power rune hidden by his boot giving the blow an extra jolt, before the werewolf can try and out his true identity. "Nobody, really. Now, if you don't mind, I've got some business to attend to."

"Did you do that?" Superdouche points to Ennis's merrily burning corpse.

"No less than he deserves." Stiles activates a light spell on his left palm and holds it up so the features of the Alpha Pack are displayed in all their glory. The transformation is stark enough that you wouldn't be able to see the person beneath the wolf unless you knew them intimately, like Stiles does. Deucalion doesn't attack, simply stands and moves so that his Pack flanks him. "What are they?" Superdouche asks.

Stiles bares his teeth, though the expression is lost behind his mask. "Come now, where's the fun in me just telling you?"

"And what are you?" The green alien steps forward, and Stiles recognizes that ancient mind from the DEA building and Kara's apartment. A shapeshifter then. Interesting. "You've been stalking us."

"I wouldn't call it stalking. You simply had information that I wanted." The alien tries to get inside his head, but Stiles bats the probe away.

"Enough talking," Deucalion growls. "You and I have business to finish. Your spangled friends can join, if they wish, though I doubt they'll be of much help."

"If I didn't know better, I'd say you sound worried." Stiles checks the time on his imaginary watch. "Ten minutes left 'till midnight, is that right?" From the look on Deucalion's face, it is. "And I don't need their help. Need I remind you that I've already kicked your ass several times, flambéed one of your lieutenants, and silenced your warlock?" But even as he boasts, Stiles knows he can't go another round with the Alpha Pack. Most of his runes have been drained or destroyed, and his other wounds cry out for attention, setting his chest and shoulder on fire. He feels ready to collapse. He just needs to find another way to stall—though if the warlock can't speak, they can't complete the ritual, so perhaps he has already stopped their plan?

"Just what happens at midnight?" Kara demands.

Superdouche inhales sharply. "I don't believe it. Stiles was right. He said there were people trying to enact a…magic ritual tonight."

"Ding-a-ling-a-ling, Superdouche gets a prize!" Stiles cheers mockingly.

"Super-what?" Superdouche sounds offended, but the alien behind him smirks just a bit.

"Stop stalling!" Deucalion bellows. "Kill them!" He orders his Pack forward with a sweeping gesture, but the three hesitate, Kali still crouched by Ennis's remains and the twins clustered together.

"Maybe it's best to just call this off for now," a twin suggests, and Stiles helps the idea along, sending wiggling worms of fear his way. "Ennis is dead, it's ten minutes to midnight, and we can't perform the ritual without the warlock." He points at Luka who is still struggling with the spectral cat. "Face it, we've lost this one."

Deucalion slashes at the twin's face, drawing blood. Kara gasps, and the twin lifts a hand to the four, deep cuts. " _I said kill them_." The full power of the Alpha coats Deucalion's words, forcing the others to nod and roll their shoulders, preparing claws and teeth for the attack.

"And I say leave," Stiles says and overpowers the Alpha command. The order rolls off him in waves, finding his targets, worming its way through chinks in armor, using grief and fear and pain to make Ethan, Aidan, and Kali realize how suicidal Deucalion's plan is.

"Sorry," Kali murmurs and leads the retreat. She can't take Ennis's body with her since the flames still form a wreath around him.

"Get back here!" Deucalion commands, but Stiles' hold is too great, and his Pack disappears into the night. "Fine, I'll deal with you myself." Deucalion starts towards Stiles, but Luka grabs his arm and shakes their head. Stiles can tell the two are having a silent conversation and sees the moment Deucalion admits Luka is right. As much as he wants to kill Deucalion now, he knows he's too weak, too tired.

"Where's the Essyolyte?" he asks instead.

Deucalion's face is blank. "The what?"

Luka opens a portal and the two disappear.

Stiles feels like he's been punched in the stomach.

He doesn't have to be a werewolf to know that Deucalion isn't lying.

His sixth sense rune flickers weakly, and he turns to find Kara, Superdouche, and the alien walking towards him slowly, carefully. "Guys, I'm tired. I don't want to fight you right now."

"Good. We don't want to fight you either," the alien says, voice calm, soothing, as if he were trying to talk down a jumper—or a shooter. "But you will have to come with us."

"I don't—I don't want to do that either." Stiles just wants to sleep for a thousand years.

"Your nose is bleeding," Kara tells him, and he runs his finger under his nose to find that it's oozing blood at a rather alarming rate.

"You have to come with us," the alien continues. The three are ten feet away from Stiles now. "You've already killed one person. We need to make sure you're not a danger to the rest of the city."

"I'm not, I assure you."

"Could've fooled us, what with that creepy mask, and…did you _cut_ those marks into yourself?" Superdouche asks.

Kara smiles at Stiles and spreads out her hands, trying to look non-threatening. "What's your name? Maybe we can help you with whatever it is you're trying to do."

"You can call me Void."

Superdouche snorts. "Void, right. Like that's supposed to make us think you're an upstanding guy."

"You asked." Stiles shrugs, and as he finishes talking, he fires off the last of his knuckle spells, blasting the ground right in front of the trio and blinding them with the light and a spray of earth. He dashes between them, snatching up his jackets and fishing his knife out of the fountain. Before they can recover, he's gone, slipping away into the darkness, using the last of his energy to activate a miniature portal chip and spirit himself away.

* * *

 _A/N - Please feel free to leave a review and let me know what you think._


	12. want

_A/N - So I think the last chapter marked the midpoint of this fic. In my horror film class, we've been talking a lot about the 8-sequence story-telling structure. After the midpoint comes the subplot which involves emotion/character development/what not, which is what I feel like this chapter is doing. But also I don't plan or plot shit so I could be totally wrong. Either way, enjoy!_

 **xii. want**

Stiles staggers into his room and collapses into bed without bothering to shuck his dirty clothes or wipe the mud and blood from his body. His limbs are heavy, so heavy. Everything hurts. He's unconscious the moment his head hits the pillow.

* * *

 _The sound of bubbling water fills his ears, delicate and clear like a child's footsteps pattering down wooden stairs. He and Derek sit on a fallen tree trunk that stretches across the river, their feet dangling six inches above the clear water. The light is golden, the leaves thick and lush. Derek's fingers are laced through his, and they throw bits of bark downstream, competing to see who can launch them the farthest. Derek wins, of course. Derek always wins. He would never allow Stiles the false dignity of pretending to lose. Derek uses his left hand, too, which just adds insult to injury._

 _They throw one last round, and Stiles leans in for a kiss, sees the start of a smile on Derek's lips, and shoves him into the water. Derek yelps—yips, actually—but grabs Stiles' leg on the way down. They both tumble into the water which is cold and crisp and deep enough that they're allowed to sink for a moment before their feet touch the bottom._

 _Derek surfaces first, pulling Stiles after him, and they stand chest deep in the water, Derek's blazing hands running up and down Stiles' goosebumped flesh._

 _"I love you," he says in a quiet sort of voice that Stiles hasn't heard before. It's the first time he's said the words, and he beat Stiles to it—Derek, who has never exactly been in touch with his emotional side; Derek, who has lost everyone he's ever loved; Derek who has had his own love betrayed time and time again._

 _Stiles takes Derek's face in his hands. "I love you."_

* * *

 _There is a house in the woods, fading into existence over a river not far from its property line. It has a porch swing that creaks in the wind and low windows that look more like half-lidded eyes. The wood is dark, almost rotten. Stiles lies inside, in a basement hidden underneath a trapdoor, hands and feet bound, eyes burning with unshed tears._

 _A hunter—not one of Chris's—holds him for leverage over Scott, over Derek. "How can you be in its Pack?" he asks, rolling a large knife back and forth between his fingers. He's already cut Stiles with it once, twice._

 _"Fuck you," Stiles grunts to hide his fear._

 _The hunter concocted this plan to get at Scott, knowing that virtuous, do-no-harm Scott would come to negotiate, but he hadn't counted on Derek and his anger._

 _Derek crashes through the ceiling, fully shifted. He wastes no time leaping across the room to catch the hunter by the throat and tear it out before the man can so much as blink. Blood sprays, splattering Derek's face, his arm, his hand. He lets the body drop. The thud it makes reverberates through Stiles' chest._

 _Derek rushes to his side and slits the ropes that bind him, gathering Stiles' shaking body to his chest. Stiles finally lets his tears flow free, and they soak through Derek's shirt. The sound of his sobs are ugly in the cramped room, like a mangled frog by the side of the road._

 _"Shh, you're okay," Derek murmurs into his sweaty hair. "I've got you. You're okay. Everything's going to be fine."_

* * *

 _"You're telling me Stiles—skinny, defenseless Stiles—is the Nogitsune?"_

 _Derek's tone is incredulous, and Stiles snorts from his hiding place. Yes. That's right. Poor, weak, defenseless Stiles. Who would ever suspect him of such power? Trickery, yes, but he's never had the strength to back it up before._

 _He slips from the rafters and out a window, glancing over his shoulder in time to make eye contact with Derek, whose mouth drops in shock, though he hides the expression from Scott and the others. Stiles crooks a finger at him and grins._

 _Five minutes later, Derek grabs his arm and drags him into an alley. "Stiles, what the hell is going on?"_

 _Stiles grabs a fistful of Derek's shirt and draws him in close. Derek's eyes shift colors in the uneven streetlight. "You can't tell the others," Stiles says in a hushed whisper. "Promise me, you won't tell the others."_

 _Derek's eyes lock onto him, somber, focused, sensing the tension in Stiles' body and the tightness of his voice. Derek has always been so good at reading the tics of Stiles' spastic limbs. "Okay. Yeah. Stiles, are you okay?"_

 _He shakes his head. "No, I'm not. I'm not okay. Derek, I can feel it inside of me. It's scratching at my brain, searching for purchase. I don't know what it wants. It's like flies beneath my skin. If I can just…" He starts scratching at his arms, under his sleeves, harder and harder like he can break through and free them all._

 _Derek grabs his hand and stills his fingers. "Stiles, stop. We'll figure this out."_

 _"It's not the sort of thing you can figure out. It's old, and it's angry, and…"_ it's everything I've ever wanted _, "…it's strong. I don't think it's the sort of thing you can protect skinny, defenseless Stiles from."_

 _Derek at least has the social competence to look embarrassed. "Stiles, I didn't mean—"_

 _"No, it's okay. It's true, isn't it? You're always protecting me. saving me from myself, most of the time. What would I do without you, huh? I bet it gives you a real hard on, doesn't it? You've always wanted to be the protector, haven't you, and you've always failed, and you're trying to make up for it by looking after poor, skinny, defenseless, Stiles. You failed to protect Boyle and Erica. You failed to protect your family. You think you can fix all that if you can just protect skinny, defenseless Stiles, but guess what, you can't. Because skinny, defenseless Stiles doesn't need your protection any more."_

 _The grin he grins is not his own. It's sharp and feral, made of razor edges and jagged teeth. Derek looks like he's had his guts ripped out by a rusty, saw tooth blade. "Stiles, what—"_

 _"And do you know what makes it worse? The fact that you think you love him. You, who doesn't even know how to love, who fucked the woman who fucked your family. You think you love him even though you know he'll never love you back. How could he ever love you? You're brittle and dark, and you break everything you touch."_

 _"You're not Stiles." Derek's voice shatters like glass hit by a hammer._

 _"Aren't I, though? I'm Stiles uncensored. Stiles as he could truly be. And he fucking loves it." Stiles grabs a fistful of Derek's shirt and yanks him close, mashing their mouths together. He forces his tongue between Derek's lips, nips at the soft flesh. Derek can't break free of his hold. Stiles pulls away but keeps their faces close. "Did you enjoy it? It's probably the only taste you're ever going to get. You should thank me."_

 _He drops Derek's shirt and saunters off, hands sunk deep in his pockets, whistling a little tune._

* * *

Stiles awakens to a frenzied pounding at his door. He starts upright, leftover magic fizzling around his fingers, and groans. His body more than aches. It pounds and burns and bellows at him. His head feels ready to split, and each cut slips all the way down to his bones.

The knocking grows louder, and Superdouche calls his name.

Fuck. He's still covered in mud and blood and the stink of battle.

"In the bathroom!" he calls in a raspy voice.

The banging stops, but he knows he doesn't have long before Superdouche decides to break down the door. He stumbles out of bed, and his knee nearly collapses beneath him as he heads for the bathroom. " _Fuck_." The whole joint is mottled black, blue, and red, and something is definitely the wrong shape.

Stiles limps to the sink and does his best to clean the grime from his face. He peels his pants off—which are stiff with god knows what—and he throws sweatpants and a hoodie on. A spritz of cologne mostly takes care of the smell.

The knocking starts again as he crosses the living room, and he yanks the door open irritably. "What?"

Superdouche, Kara, and Alex barge into his apartment, looking tired and peeved.

"Come right in," he grumbles.

Superdouche snaps his fingers, forms the hand into a fist, then awkwardly pushes it down to his side. His jaw clenches and unclenches. "Take off your shirt."

"Woah there," Stiles sneers. "I usually prefer a man buy me dinner first."

Alex puts a hand on Superdouche's shoulder before he can rush Stiles. "Did you hear about the fight at Avalon Park last night?" she asks.

"No." Stiles shrugs. His shoulder aches from when Deucalion flung him across said park. "I was, ah, having a rough time last night."

He see's Kara's eyes melt, but she holds herself back, hands shoved in her pockets.

"Maggie told me someone who looked an awful lot like Deucalion was there," Alex says.

It's a flimsy lie. Stiles makes his eyes widen. "What? Deucalion? What was he doing there?"

"Maggie's not sure. He and his buddies disappeared. She said they were fighting with some guy in a mask with weird symbols cut into his skin. They were throwing around some serious power. There's footage all over the Internet."

"What does this have to do with me?" Stiles asks.

"You knew Deucalion was going to be there—you've been pushing your magic ritual theory on me for weeks." Superdouche shrugs Alex's hand off and crowds Stiles into the counter. "Was the man in the mask you?"

Stiles would move, but he doesn't want them to see his limp. "What? Come on, man, that's ridiculous."

"Then take off your sweatshirt."

"No."

Alex and Kara raise their eyebrows at his sharp, cool tone. "Why not?" Superdouche asks. "Got something to hide?"

"Yeah, I got something to fucking hide." Stiles pushes off the counter so he can stand chest to chest with Superdouche. The man has two inches on him, but he tips back his head and glares. "I've got cuts all up and down my arms."

It's the first time he's actually admitted it aloud, and he shocks himself into silence. The others can only stare at him, guilt flashing across their faces, and Superdouche takes two steps back. Stiles can't help but feel a little satisfied at their reaction. He curls his lip. "So excuse me if I don't want to put them on display for all to see."

His phone buzzes, and he pulls it from his pocket, the calendar reminder for his therapy appointment giving him a much needed out. "Shit. It's later than I thought. I have to go." His next words come out acidic. "Unless you want to accuse me of anything else?"

"Stiles, we're sorry," Kara says. "It's just…you've been pulling away from us without explanation. And then we saw the reports from last night. We didn't know what to think."

Stiles raises an eyebrow. "So you thought I was some kind of freaky vigilante?"

None of them have an answer for him, and after a beat, Stiles points at the door. "See yourselves out."

He heads for his room without waiting to see if they'll obey. "Why are you limping?" Superdouche asks.

"I fell in the shower. Mind your own business."

"Ms. Grant called me after she couldn't get a hold of you. She told me to tell you that you're fired."

Stiles pauses with his hand on the doorknob and slowly turns his head to look at Superdouche, a snide smile spread across his lips. "Good. I won't have to work with you anymore." The 'you' holds multitudes—derision, scorn, something rotten and unspeakable deep beneath its surface.

Kara's hands fly to her mouth. Even Alex looks stunned. Somewhere inside himself, Stiles screams. But he can't stop that squirm of pleasure at the pain he's caused or the hand that yanks the door open for a dramatic exit.

Superdouche barges after him and shoves him into his room. It's the first act of true anger he's seen from the man. Stiles likes it. A grin is feral on his lips. "What is your problem?" Superdouche demands. "We only want to be your friends. Why are you being such a _dick_?"

He shoves Stiles again, and his back strikes the wall. Superdouche's steps are fast and clipped as he approaches, but he freezes in his tracks just outside Stiles' personal space, eyes locked on something to his left. When he speaks next, his voice is much softer. "Why—why do you have a picture of me?"

Panic flashes through Stiles as Derek stretches out a hand towards Derek's framed photo, and he snatches it up first, clutching it to his chest.

"Stiles, why do you have a picture of me beside your bed?"

Stiles squeezes his eyes shut. No, no, no, he doesn't want this to be happening. "It's not a picture of you."

"I don't understand."

Though his eyes are still shut, he knows Kara and Alex are right behind Superdouche. Slowly, he unclenches his muscles and offers out the photograph. Gentle fingers take it from his hand. "It's Derek."

"Why does your boyfriend look just like me?"

Dead boyfriend.

"I don't know."

Stiles opens his eyes to see Kara, Alex, and Superdouche clustered around the photograph. "I can't look at you without thinking of him. Every gesture, every expression you make is so similar but just different enough that it breaks my heart. You're polite where he's sarcastic. Soft where he's brittle. Open where he's closed. Interacting with you…I can't. I'm sorry."

Superdouche hands the picture back, but Stiles can't look at it. "I'm sorry, too. I didn't know."

"Not your fault. How could you know?" Stiles shrugs and reverently sets the photo back in its spot. "I've behaved abominably since, well, since I met you. I am sorry for that. I don't expect you to forgive me. I wouldn't. I'm toxic. You're better off without me in your life."

Superdouche opens his mouth to answer, but Stiles barrels over him. "I have to go. Shut the door on your way out, will you?"

He rushes from the room and the apartment as fast as he can with his limp, and then he's safe and all alone in the elevator. Stiles slumps against the wall. His hands shake, his head pounds, but he ran off without any of his weed, so he can't calm them down.

The shaking continues all the way to his therapist's office and doesn't stop until he glares at his hands and lifts one to knock on the door. Dr. Connors answers, dressed in a Psycho t-shirt this time. Stiles approves of her pop culture references.

"Stiles, come in." She smiles. It's genuine.

He winces as he mounts the last step and enters her office. "Before you ask, I tripped in the shower and sprained my knee. I'll be fine." He gives her a look that dares her to comment.

"Good to know," she says as she shuts the door.

He wanders back to her bookshelf, his favorite place to spend their sessions. "Did you hear about the fight last night?" Dr. Connors asks, holding up a tablet with an article splashed across it, a grainy photo of himself and Deucalion's back under the heading. His blank mask looks nice and spooky in the low light.

"Just a little bit. Some new vigilante, right?"

"Real violent guy. It says he burned one of his opponents up."

"Who was he fighting?" Stiles asks. Might as well get some information out of this.

Dr. Connors shrugs. "There's no information on them. Or why they were fighting. Supergirl and Superman showed up and broke it up."

Stiles hums noncommittally.

"The article speculates it might be connected to those three murders."

So Superdouche is finally catching wise. If Stiles were still doing the hero thing, he would clue the others in on the supernatural world so they can do their jobs better, but he's not going to do that, not going to explain how he knows about it all.

"What do you think of him?" Dr. Connors puts the tablet away.

"Of who?" Stiles asks.

She gives him a look that says she's not putting up with his bullshit today. "Of the vigilante. They're calling him Void."

"I don't have an opinion on him yet."

"Indulge me."

Stiles sighs and rolls his eyes. "Obviously, burning people up is a shitty thing to do." That's the correct response, right? "But like you said, we don't know why they were fighting. Maybe the other guys were worse."

"Would you kill to protect someone you love?"

He already has. "Wouldn't anyone?"

"I look forward to the day when you finally give me a straight answer to a question, Stiles," Dr. Connors says, crossing her legs and resting a finger on her yellow notepad.

Stiles leans against the bookshelf and mirrors her posture in a standing position. "You'll be waiting a long time since I'm definitely not straight."

"When did you come out?"

"Officially? The end of junior year, but let's be real, everyone knew long before that, when Derek and I met." Stiles smiles faintly. He was not subtle about his attraction.

"Did you know you liked men before Derek?"

"I think maybe I was bi-curious. I certainly spent enough time pestering Danny about whether or not he found me attractive. But I'd also been deeply in love with Lydia Martin since the fourth grade."

Dr. Connors laughs. "I take it Lydia didn't return your affections?"

"Hell no. She barely knew I existed."

"So Derek was your first romantic partner."

"Yes." Stiles narrows his eyes slightly. Where is this going? He's not sure he's likes the sincere, comforting expression on the doctor's face.

"You two were serious."

"Yes."

"Will you date again?"

And there it is. Stiles knows it's a reasonable question, but he still feels a flood of rage at the words. He clenches his fists, nails biting into flesh, and he turns his head so the doctor won't see the darkness flashing there. "No," he says in a low voice. "Some people only get one chance."

"It's okay to move on. I'm sure he'd want to."

"Don't tell me what he would want!" Stiles yells, just like he yelled at Scott so many months before. His words bounce off the walls, and the lights flicker. Dor. Connors swallows, leans back in her chair, but Stiles just wants to put his fist through something. Derek doesn't get to want anything anymore. Stiles would put himself in chains to see Derek want again—would drop himself in the ocean encased in lead, would carve out his own heart and put it on display, but that's not how things work. There's no such thing as equivalent exchange, no life for a life, no such _thing_ as necromancy.

Stiles knows. He looked into it.

He swallows a third of his fury. Cocks his head to the side. Prowls forward a step or two. There's a flicker of unease in Dr. Connors' eyes as Stiles slips around the couch, trailing a nail along the armrest. "I think we're done here," he says. "For good."

"Stiles, I know you're angry, and I know you're hurting, but you can't pull away from this." Dr. Connors keeps her voice oh-so-low, the way she might talk to a wounded, vicious animal. "You have to face it. Deal with it."

Stiles is halfway to the door. He stops by her chair, and she has to turn her head uncomfortably far to look at him. "You can tell Detective Sawyer whatever you like. She's welcome to try and slap me with those drug charges. But we're done here."

"Stiles—"

"You can't fix me, Doc." He bites off the 'c.' "Thanks for trying, though." He's only being a little sarcastic.

He walks out the front door.

Maybe Dr. Connors is right. Maybe he _does_ need to talk about…this, about Derek, but he certainly can't talk to her. There are too many years of shit and darkness and fucking werewolves to explain, and he'd never be able to make her believe enough to understand. To be able to help. So he shuts her out. Walks away.

Maybe he's protecting her. Keeping her from a whole world of shadows that would haunt her till she dies.

Maybe he's just protecting himself by keeping the shadows inside.

The day is too bright, too sunny when he leaves the therapist's office. He squints and lifts a hand to shade his eyes, the budding scabs along his arm stretching painfully. He limps home, knowing he should take the subway or call a cab, but he hasn't the energy to care. So he walks, and he aches, and he barely makes it home. He slumps in the elevator, pain pulsating through his body, and staggers to his door, trying to keep his shaking fingers quiet as he inserts the key in the lock.

His apartment is dark and empty. Cold. Though his bones drag him towards his bed, he updates his board instead, stripping the werewolves from around the Essyolyte, slapping a great, big question mark in their place.

Back to square one. That's just fucking great.

* * *

 _A/N - No one's reading this, but that's okay. It's a crossover, and it's harder to get readers for those on this site than it is on AO3. I'll keep posting chapters here anyways. If you_ are _reading, I'd love to hear from you and know what you think of the fic._


	13. the docks

xiii.

the docks

So turns out there's an alien bar in National City.

Stiles spends two weeks roaming aimlessly through the city with no leads, no clues, no nothing to show him where to go. He overheard a couple of aliens talking about the bar one night, though he's still putting together where it might be. It's not like he can just ask any of his alien friends about it, since he doesn't have any alien friends anymore. He's pretty sure Superdouche is avoiding him which Stiles supposes makes sense, considering the bombshell that is Stiles' dead boyfriend. Stiles would avoid himself, too, if he could.

Stiles massages his mostly healed forearm as he waits in a shadowy alley for an alien he can follow to the bar. He mildly regrets cutting off his cast so prematurely—a bit of a harrowing task since he almost sliced his arm open elbow to wrist—but he needed the skin space for his runes. The marks are healing slowly, leaving scars, and some of the deeper cuts still ache and burn if he moves too quickly.

His leg, however, seems to be more permanently fucked up. A stabbing pain goes through his knee with every step, and even when he's not moving, the thing aches something fierce. He rubs at the knee as he leans against the alley wall. A lit joint dangles from the fingers of his other hand—maybe not the stealthiest choice, but it dulls the roaring in his veins and limbs.

A woman with hair the color of sunlight walks past him, her eyes a white to match over the raised ridges across her cheekbones. Even without the markings, Stiles would know she wasn't human. She tickles that same part of his brain that Kara does every time he sees her. Stiles slips out of the shadows and follows her, staring at his phone as if fully absorbed in whatever is on the screen.

He's missed dozens of calls from his father over these past two weeks as well as a series of increasingly irate texts from Lydia—it didn't take her long to figure out that he's Void, and she definitely wants to chew him out about it. He doesn't hear from Scott or the others much. He knows they probably think it best not to overwhelm him with their concern, electing Lydia as the point of contact, but it still stings. He and Scott have been best friends since they were little. Part of Stiles expects a little more fight, a little more anger, from Scott. But Stiles probably burned that bridge when he wormed his way inside Scott's head all those months ago. He seems to be doing a lot of that lately.

He follows the woman for five minutes, into a neighborhood just off downtown National City. She steps through the metal door of an unmarked building at the dead end of a narrow, dimly lit street. Stiles doesn't go inside right away—wouldn't want to be too obvious, after all—scouting the area instead. The dumpster halfway down the alley is empty, and the streetlights flicker weakly above his head. He stretches out his other senses, easing a tendril of dark thought towards the bar. Ten people inside, none of them energies he recognizes.

He walks into the bar as unobtrusively as he can, the door creaking despite his best intentions, though only a few of the closest patrons glance up at him. The alien bar looks like any other dive bar that Scott and the others dragged him to over their college years. There's a pool table to his left, a game in progress between a couple of leather jacket wearing women, and dark tables fill the rest of the floor space. The patrons are the only marked difference. There are people with colorful skins, people too tall and too bulky to ever be human, even one with a tail, and people with eyes almost subtle enough to pass except when the light catches them just wrong.

"What can I get you?" the bartender asks, jerking Stiles' attention away form the rest of the room as he reaches a barstool. She looks human, but Stiles senses something else beneath her skin.

"What's good?" the thought of drinking still turns Stiles' stomach, but if he's going to blend in, he needs a glass in front of him.

"The Yistian lager is our happy hour special today," she says.

"Sure."

She grabs a glass from under the bar and draws a pint from one of the drafts in front of Stiles, a dark green liquid with a grey-black foam on top. She sets it down on the coaster and gives him a smile.

"Hey, can I ask you a question?" Stiles wraps his hands around the cold glass and draws it close but doesn't take a sip.

The bartender shrugs and picks up a polishing rag and a glass fresh from the dishwasher.

"Have you heard about any Essyolytes on the planet?"

She pauses in her polishing. "What are you, a cop?"

"Do I look like a fucking cop?" Stiles snaps.

"DEO agent, then."

Stiles curls his lip and scoffs. "No, fuck them. I wouldn't toss an agent a rope if they were dangling off a cliff."

"Then why all the questions?"

Stiles has asked one question. He could make her talk. It would be so easy—he's been feeling his power growing ever since he started using it properly, stretching up and out like a flower reaching for the sun, its roots digging deeper and deeper into his brain.

He smiles at her, runs a hand through his hair, messes around with her dials with a ghostly finger so that she'll trust him, be a little freer with her words. "Personal stakes. You know anything?"

"I hear there's one living down in the docks district." The bartender's eyes have gone a little glassy, the lines around them smooth and flat.

The docks. That's something at least, though having a name would be so much better. He drums his fingers against the counter then slides the bartender a twenty, giving her a little mental nudge to send her on her way. He starts to stand, lager untouched, but he catches a glimpse of familiar blonde hair as the door swings open.

"Shit." Stiles drops back to his stool and spins so his back is to them, throwing his hood up. He hears chair legs scraping against the floor just a few stools down from him, and he curses again, clenching his fists. Any way he tries to get to that door, they'll see him, and they'll want to know what he's doing here, how he found the place.

"Look, I know we haven't heard from that Void character in a few weeks, but we still need to consider him a high priority," the scary one says, the one with the vast mind and the stolen man's face. "He's dangerous. Unknown."

"And you don't like the unknown. We get it, J'onn," Alex interrupts, a hint of laughter in her voice.

"Look, I am several thousand years old, and I have never seen power like the kind he was throwing around. He had that same dark mental energy that I've been sensing all over the city, and those sigils in his skin…" He trails off.

Stiles starts building up his wall brick by brick before the alien can sense him in here, too.

"They looked carved into his skin," Kara says, voice crawling with unease, maybe a little bit of disgust unless Stiles' ears are deceiving him. "Who could do something like that?"

A lot of people, actually. He slips one last brick into place, and he thinks he sees J'onn glance up as he does so, but that might just be his paranoia deciding to make itself known. It grips his spine, one hand low around his vertebrae, the other up high, on his neck, talons digging deep into flesh, curling around bone. He needs to get out of here before he's recognized.

The bar door slams open before he can come up with a plan of action, and a man with tiny, button horns on his head stumbles through, blood streaming from a cut at his hairline. He flings a hand back towards the open door where white lights flash, muted by smoke and dust. The man's mouth flaps uselessly, but the bar gets the message. Half the patrons dive for the floor or under tables, and the other half stand in suspended animation, staring at the smoke wafting into the room. Only the Super Friends move with any kind of purpose, communicating an entire plan to each other in three looks, just like Derek and the rest of the Pack used to.

Alex and J'onn go out the front door, shoulder to shoulder, Alex's gun drawn, while Kara heads for the back, no doubt to ditch her townie clothes so she can appear as the hero once again. Whatever is out there, they can handle it. That's what they do. Stiles has the docks to investigate. And he yet finds himself standing, pulling his black mask from the deep inside pocket of his jacket, slipping it over his face as he strides out the door.

Stiles has never been able to stay away from a fight.

Chaos reigns outside. Smoke has swallowed half the alley, including the dumpster, and the wan streetlamps have been smashed, leaving only the half-hidden stars and thin, green laser beams to light the scene. Dark, bulky shadows move in formations towards the heroic tableau that Alex and J'onn make, arranged in front of the door with their feet planted wide and hips thrust forward.

"Stop!" Alex shouts, gun raised.

The marauders don't, of course, stop.

Kara—or rather, Supergirl—appears from above, drifting over the roof with her hands on her hips. "Who are you people? What do you want?" she calls down.

"Clearly, they're here to fuck up the bar." Stiles sneaks right up behind Alex and J'onn and is satisfied to see them jump. Alex can't seem to decide if she wants to shove her pistol in his face or keep it pointed at the approaching interlopers.

"Are you with them?" J'onn demands.

"Why the hell would I be with them?"

"You share a certain color scheme."

Rude. There's only one downside to his Void mask—the lack of sarcastic expression, which comprise about half of his communication lexicon. He snaps his fingers, though it's mostly just for the effect, and the bulky shadows slam to a halt as he releases the wall he's been hiding behind like a dam.

"What are you?" J'onn whispers.

"Aren't you more interested in what they are?" Stiles hops around the confused DEO agents and up to the mannequins in dark armor, frozen stiff. There are no insignias on their clothing, and each one wears a full, black face guard that reflects his own Void back at him. Stiles smacks the face mask off the asshole closest to him, and a plainly human face stares back at him, all furious eyes and frazzled hair.

"Ten bucks says their species-ist," Stiles says.

"What did you do to them?" Kara finally descends to earth, landing beside Alex, and crosses her arms, looking at Stiles like he's the next big bad alien she needs to squash under the platform heel of her boot.

"Just flipped a few switches."

The man in front of Stiles turns red-faced, veins popping in his forehead and neck as he struggles to free himself from the hold Stiles has on him and all the others, struggles to hit all the buttons Stiles turned off, tearing free movement away from them.

"Release them," Kara orders.

"So they can attack us? No, thank you." Stiles snorts and rolls his eyes behind his mask.

J'onn jerks his green chin at the straining man. "Let that one speak."

"You guys are really bossy, you know that?" Just like Derek, but less mean and more angry and disgusted. But he still snaps his fingers and presses a few buttons within the man's skull to allow him control over his mouth again.

The first thing the mercenary does is spit in Stiles' face, a thick, phlegmy glob that sticks to the cheek of his mask for a second before slowly sliding down to fall off his chin.

Stiles wonders what he could do to this man. Make him feel pain—make him feel agony—make him writhe on the ground—convulse until he goes blind—maybe even kill him.

Stiles takes a step back and away, though it's less from the shock of the thought itself and more from the shock that he doesn't seem to care.

"Who are you?" J'onn asks in his authoritative, scary-alien-man voice.

Stiles slips into the shadows. The old-him yearns to stick around for the interrogation, gather information, smoke out the bad guys, but the new-him doesn't think this is his fight. His fight is the Essyolyte and its master and however Deucalion and his warlock fit into it.

He puts the mercenaries on a timer set to release in twenty minutes—because apparently, that's a thing he can do—and he struts—limps—off down the alleyway. Footsteps follow him, a hand almost reaching to catch his shoulder. "Void…" Kara's voice, hesitant, choking on his masked name.

"Don't your friends need you?" Stiles asks. He stops but he doesn't turn around.

"Not right now. Who are you?"

"Who are you?" he counters. The end of the alley, along with his escape into the dark of the night, is so close, a mere dozen feet away.

"Fair point." Supergirl hesitates, and Stiles thinks he could make a break for it, but he knows he'd never outrun her. "Look. I have to ask. Whose side are you on?"

"You don't have to worry about me," he says because he's not going to be a total cliché and say, 'My own side.' "I'm looking for someone. Once I've found them, you'll never see me again."

"Who? Maybe I could help?

Of course she would offer help. She doesn't know Void, has only seen him covered in blood, setting werewolves on fire, and Stiles knows he scares her, freaks her out even, but she's putting that aside to look at him with too big, blue eyes.

"No, Supergirl." He almost calls her Kara. "I won't drag you into this. You belong in the light, and I will only drag you down into the muck." He dragged Derek down so far he got killed. He won't do it again.

"I'm sure that won't happen." She touches his elbow, and for a second, Stiles wants to cry. That's right where Derek used to nudge him every time he needed to squeeze past Stiles, and Stiles hasn't really been touched softly like that in what seems like an eternity.

"I can't risk it. Not again." The last bit slips out before he can stop it, and his face heats up behind his mask. "Look, I have to go." He moves on quickly, hoping Kara won't notice but knowing she'll catch it anyway. "You should finish dealing with those dicks."

Stiles stuffs his hands into his pockets and walks off. He's needed down at the docks, and he can't afford to be distracted. He can feel Kara's eyes on him, but after a moment, he hears her footsteps turn and head back towards the bar.

Once he's rounded the corner, he takes off the Void mask and makes it disappear into his jacket. The air is cool on his bare skin. It makes him feel vulnerable, too exposed to the world and any who might care to look upon his soul. He spent years barring himself to everyone around him, chattering at a near constant rate, expressions wide and open and rising easily to the surface. But now he's terrified of being seen, as if he might fall apart under the weight of too many eyes.

So he throws up his hood, hunches his shoulders, and radiates discomfort so that strangers' eyes jump over him. He takes the bus down to the docks district and has the three back rows all to himself as he repels all the other passengers.

It's nearing the witching hour by the time he reaches his final stop, and he's the last one on the bus as he swings down the steps and onto the streets. He sees the driver swallow and clench her hands around the wheel as he walks by.

It's started to drizzle, and the sidewalks glisten in the streetlights. Stiles wishes he could repel the water like he repelled those people on the bus, but his hoodie slowly grows damper and damper as he walks along until water drips off his fingers and his bad knee aches like someone's just taken a sledgehammer to it. The buildings out here are mostly warehouses, though it's hard to tell which are empty and which are in use; all of them have the same worn brick and darkened window façade.

How does one find an alien and its master? Wander around and hope to stumble on something? Doesn't seem very likely. He rifles through his pockets as he walks. He has the makings of a tracking spell, but without anything belonging to the Essyolyte, it's useless. He'll just have to be systematic, check every building until he finds something.

So that's what he does. Every night. For five nights. He charts his progress, ticking off buildings on a homemade map and dropping roaches at every street corner. He crawls through windows and picks locks, using his magic powders to gum up any rudimentary security systems, and he sweeps each warehouse thoroughly, leaving no room, no cabinet, no cubby unsearched. The occasional night guard doesn't notice a thing.

Stiles gets all the way down to the water without finding anything, rage bubbling up inside of him until the streetlights flicker with his passing. He stops at the edge of the wharf, the water three feet below him, and stares out across its expanse. It's flat and black, swallowing up the stars and the moon, and he can feel its depths calling to him, a siren's song of a gentle descent into the safe, cool arms of oblivion.

His toes nudge the edge. He would no longer be a burden, one less thing for Kara and the others to worry about, one less murderer roaming the streets, one less monster to haunt the dark. He sees a werewolf entombed in Greek fire. Screaming. Dying. His skull showing through his melting flesh. There were kinder ways to kill him. More humane ones, but Stiles chose to make him suffer like that because he wanted to deal back some of that pain that the Alpha Pack had caused him and his friends. Without Scott's perfect, pretty Pack rules to keep him in check, it's funny how quickly he falls into the same patterns of darkness they used to fight against. One more fall, and he could put it all right.

But before he can tip himself forward that final inch, he hears something crash in the unsearched warehouse to his left. He takes a step back from the edge. It could be the Essyolyte. He can always kill himself once this is over.

As Stiles crosses the street, he puts the mask back on, and he's safe again, emotions sliding back into the darkness where they won't distract him any more. He spots a broken window up on the second floor and scoots up the fire escape to the rusty, rickety landing that creaks loudly under his weight. He pokes his head through the window, though his eyes struggle to see through the shadows. The dark vision rune on the inside of the mask is clearly losing power.

He slips through the window into the second floor and closes his eyes, tapping the side of the mask to activate the heightened hearing rune. Rats skitter across the metal, wind rattles through a broken pipe somewhere on the other side of the building, and somewhere on the first floor, a creature breathes.

The grin that cracks Stiles' face would be more at home upon a skull, and he lets Allison's knife drop from his sleeve into his hand. He treads quietly through the warehouse until he finds the stairs, which creak under his feet as he descends. The breathing hitches, but Stiles is okay with that; he wants the Essyolyte to know who's coming for it. As he reaches the last few steps, he pulls several baggies of powder from his pockets and mixes them together in his palm, flinging the finished product into the air so that it floats about the room on the gentle breath of wind and begins to glow.

Boxes litter the floor, but they've all been shoved to the sides to block the ground level windows and create a wide, open space in the center of the warehouse. Standing in the middle of it all is the Essyolyte, hulking and large and reptilian. Its flat, black eyes flash in the lightning bug dust motes, and it roars as Stiles comes into view, claws fully extended at its sides.

"Do you know who I am?" Stiles growls.

Images flash in his mind—his headlong rush at the creature in the forest, their meeting in the alley; Stiles eyes blaze in each instant with blackened flames that dance in the sockets and drift out behind him as he moves.

"Then you know why I'm here."

He sees Derek's broken, bleeding body stretched out on the ground like a thing thrown out the car window. Stiles fills with rage at the sight of it because nobody deserves that, especially not Derek.

"Where's your master? Take me to them."

But the Essyolyte shakes its head. Stiles wonders if it's a case of can't or won't. If he were a good person, and if he weren't dealing with a telepathic alien, he would offer to help free it from its master, but he's no hero. Both of them will die, one way or another.

"I'll find out anyways," he says as he strides towards the Essyolyte.

The alien bellows its acceptance of his challenge and barrels towards him at a ground-rumbling run. They crash together in two ways; blade and claws vying for flesh, minds scrambling for dominance over the other. Stiles' knife skitters across the hard scales, and a claw scratches his mask, the sparks bursting across his vision and igniting a wildfire in the mindscape upon which they batter each other. Stiles takes control of the landscape and flings the raging fires at the Essyolyte, forcing it to backflip, backflip, backflip, landing on a stack of crates.

Stiles runs after it, knife held low, bad knee barely holding out, and the alien leaps towards him. Stiles lets a powder fall into his hand from a capsule up his sleeve, and he carves a symbol through the air, the powder slipping through his fingers. The symbol glows in midair and erupts when the Essyolyte strikes it, flaring green and flinging the creature back, and Stiles uses the pathways of pain to worm his way into his mind, searching for any shred of its master. The Essyolyte throws Derek's face back at him, sticky, tentacle fingers seeking to drag him back to that day, but this time, his rage is stronger than his guilt. As the Essyolyte falls through the air, Stiles falls through its mind, both of them trapped in slow motion.

He can't reach the Essyolyte's dials like he can with other humans, can't turn up its pain levels, and his pathway through the Essyolyte's mind are growing narrower and narrower. He feels like he's close, but then the Essyolyte strikes the ground, and he's jolted back into his own brain. He blinks, stunned, and the alien lies in a pile of broken crates.

He needs the chaos of the Nogitsune—the black unpredictability of not caring about any consequences, of chaos for chaos's sake, then he'd be able to destroy this fucking thing once and for all, destroy everything that took Derek from him. The Nogitsune gave him this power. Maybe it left something else behind as well.

That thought shocks him back two steps, and he slams into a stack of crates. Well, at least there's still some part of him with a shred of morality left. The Essyolyte tackles him, throwing him through the crates, and they crash to the ground and roll, claws ripping the Void mask from his face and shredding skin. Stiles gets one leg between them and kicks, but it's his bad leg, and his knee screams—or maybe that's actually his mouth.

It tumbles off him, and Stiles flips over, crawling away as fast as he can. Claws catch his pant leg, and he falls, smacking his chin on the stone floor. He's dragged backwards, and he rolls over, twisting his knee, and scrawls a rune across his hand in his own blood. He fires a blast at the Essyolyte, but the rune is misdrawn, and it careens past the alien's ear, searing his palm.

The Essyolyte rears up and raises its talons, bellowing, but Stiles' head is spinning, and he can't stop it. Something red and blue rams into the Essyolyte's chest and knocks it away just before it can eviscerate Stiles, and Stiles lets his head thump to the ground in relief. It only exacerbates his throbbing headache.

There's a crash and a roar, and then someone is crouching over him, blonde hair falling across his forehead. "Are you okay?" Kara asks, hands fluttering over his bleeding face.

Stiles groans. Does he _look_ okay? And where did his mask go? Is it lying out in the open, waiting to incriminate him? His head hurts too much to turn it to look. "I'll live." Probably.

Kara helps him sit up and turns his chin to look at his cuts. "What are you doing all the way down here?"

Stiles is getting tired of lying. "Was on a walk. Got jumped. Thanks, I guess, for swinging by."

"Let me get you to the hospital," Kara insists. "That looks bad."

Stiles has spent far too much time in hospitals, not to mention how word will get back to his father and the others, and then Maggie will be on his ass again about this, that, and the next fucking thing. "It's fine."

"It'll scar."

So his outsides will match his insides. Good.

"You know, you're allowed to not be fine." Kara looks him over with those too sincere eyes. Derek had told him the same thing many, many times, but it was a lesson he'd never managed to learn.

"I know. Could you take me home? Please?"

"Sure." Kara helps him stand and gives him a light pat on the back.

"I just need to find my phone. I dropped it when that thing jumped me." He limps away and spots his mask about ten feet away, hidden by the shadows of another crate stack. He blocks Kara's line of sight and crouches awkwardly to pick it up and stick it back in his sweatshirt. "Got it."

"Where are we going?" Kara asks, and Stiles is impressed that she actually remembered to keep her cover. So he gives her his address—their address—and she gently picks him up, bridal style. Derek carried him that way every time he was even a little bit injured, refusing to grant him any shred of dignity, and Stiles dips his head into her firm shoulder to pretend that it's Derek holding him once more. Kara lifts into the air, and soon, they're high above the city, the wind whipping through Stiles' hair and stinging his cuts. If only he could be anyone else. Someone named Charles or Tony. People named Charles and Tony never betray their friends or try to murder aliens or lose their boyfriends. If he pinched the nerve in Kara's neck just right, she would drop him, and maybe he would hit he ground before she could catch him.

But they landed before he could try it, Kara setting him down on his balcony. Stiles shoves his window open and groans as he wedges himself through. "Thanks, Kara," he said and shut the window behind him, slouching tiredly to his room and flopping to the bed, still covered in blood, ignoring the tap-tap-tap at his balcony window.


End file.
